Barely four months into his presidency, Obama is confronting growing dissatisfaction among members of his liberal base, who feel spurned by a series of his early decisions on issues ranging from guns to torture to immigration to gay rights.
The list got longer last week as Obama reversed his earlier decision to release photos of detainees abused in U.S. military custody and announced plans to try some terror suspects before military commissions – though on the campaign trail he railed against earlier versions of the tribunals.
A few, like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, have even hurled the left’s ultimate epithet – suggesting that Obama’s turning into George W. Bush.
Unlike, of course, conservatives who marched lockstep with Bush like lemmings until suddenly last November 5, they uncovered evidence that Bush was not really conservative and was in fact the pre-Obama Barack Obama.
We on the left are a cantankerous bunch, to be sure, which means, to periphrase Barnum, you can't fool all of the peoples all of the time. For the right, apparently you can not only fool all the of the peoples all of the time, but you can make them smile and ask for more.
After making a case that liberals will demand a "liberal Scalia" as payback for his backpedalling on issues like torture and troop withdrawal, Politico goes on to dump this load of shit on the blogosphere:
Brittain said such a [centrist] nominee would be confirmed – but liberal groups would probably be slow to respond to future calls for help from Obama. “When he went to press the button next time to rally up people, I think there would still be a lingering issue,” Brittain said.
Right. Because as we all know, liberal groups will shoot themselves to spite themselves.
If the past eight years have taught liberals, at least thinking liberals anything, it's that lockstep ideologues are unlikely to be satisfied with very much for very long and the Bush administration policy of appeasement might have won him a second term, but it did not win him a successful administration.
Obama himself said it best at Notre Dame, albeit it on a different topic:
“Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction,” he said. “But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”
Politico, please...stop characterizing us on the left. You think you know us, but you know nothing.
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