I’m trying to figure out whether my continued tolerance of the failed Obama administration reflects my partisanship or whether it’s my perfervid devotion talking:
It is no surprise that innocent children, naive European prize committees, and professional Democratic partisans continue to revere the heroic former candidate, despite everything he has done and left undone. Nor is it surprising that the Republican Party and the broken remnants of the old White Supremacy coalition hate and fear the man and will oppose him without quarter (excepting, of course, his war and torture policies, which flatter their nationalist impulses). Puzzling, however, is the fact that the president, who until recently was an obscure striver in the Chicago Democratic machine, continues to inspire perfervid devotion among many intellectual liberals who know their history.[…]
The real puzzler to me is how Obama inspires such intense hatred in such a short period of time. This jackass was canned at the end of January, so presumably he started writing his book then, after a mere year of Obama’s betrayal of liberalism had elapsed.
Also, too: I may be perfervidly devoted, but at least I don’t recycle Richard Cohen column headlines.
Linda Featheringill
Apparently, some people are really disappointed in Obama.
Probably because he wasn’t my first choice, I listened closely to him during the campaign. I knew he wasn’t as liberal as I am [and he isn’t]. I knew that he would pursue both practical and wildly idealistic goals [and he has]. I knew that he wouldn’t succeed at everything [and he hasn’t].
But he has worked hard and tried to do the best and has succeeded at a lot of things.
I suspect that some of these folks [many?] didn’t hear what the man actually said during the campaign. They heard what they wanted to hear. And, naturally, they find that they are are disappointed.
I think that Obama has done well. Many of the programs he has supported and worked for will benefit the whole country for a long time. One day, he will probably be considered one of our more effective presidents, probably up there with Johnson. We’ll see.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
It’s all the Presidentin’ While Black that he’s been doing.
Or so all my red, rurl and entirely white/cracker/redneck Misery neighbors would tell you in the privacy of their homes after downing a 12 pack of an American Light Beer.
BR
I was a subscriber to Harpers for about six months during 2009 and they were already comparing Obama to Hoover, which given the economic circumstances may have made some sense but from a policy perspective made none. I canceled my subscription.
cat48
Suppose I’m too generous, but I don’t think at 21 mos approx it can be considered completely “failed.” That’s a huge assumption on anyone’s part. I guess only teh white presidents get to serve a few years first. So I’m going to give him a little more time before I completely turn on him since I believe in equal rights for everyone.
TR
Ugh, that section reads like it was written by a college freshman trying far too hard to sound incredibly smart. His editor should’ve taken his thesaurus and burned it.
homerhk
I’m sorry, but the American public has failed Obama in certain ways. More than any recent President he has put politicking to one side and devoted his effort to improving the lot of the American public – not just one section of it but all of it. But the American public weren’t actually ready for that and despite their protests appear to still want daily politicking, who’s winning the day government. It’s very depressing to watch, imho.
cat48
@Linda Featheringill:
I so think he’s worked really hard, too. I honestly don’t think I could hack it. I think that’s why I can’t quit him. Besides, since I live in SC; it makes me a little different.
Chyron HR
Yes, as a true liberal, I denouce Obama’s perfervid devotees, who are probably boojums and snarks also, too.
lawguy
@Linda Featheringill: Could you perhaps list those “wildly idealist” goals he pursued?
Mark-NC
The intense hatred comes because he is a Democrat (see Bill Clinton for reference). Who the person happens to be is irrelevant. Republicans are for Republican and absolutely nothing else.
THEN, you throw in the Black thing on top of the intense hatred for anybody not Republican and you get………….
lawguy
@cat48: See FDR, 100 Days, or perhaps see LBJ and when he accomplished his most important stuff.
August J. Pollak
It must be very strange to be President Obama. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
JPL
After the President was elected, the repubs knew they had no chance to regain power unless they became the party of no.
The news media did not write articles stating that NO was not a solution to our economic problems, they agreed with it.
The only weakness, IMO, the President has shown was not using his microphone to call the repubs traitors but then he would have been portrayed as the angry black man.
Nick
@lawguy:
the year after he was reelected?
homerhk
Lawguy: here you go:
– expanded healthcare to 32 million more people;
– cut $200 bn at least in corporate welfare (student loans, medicare advantage)
– enacted a consumer protection agency
– increased fuel efficiency standards and crack down on carbon emissions via EPA
– expanded AmeriCorps
– heavy reliance on diplomacy in foreign policy, including renewed focus on the israel-palestinian issue
– massive investments in green energy, education and infrastructure through the recovery act; and
– the largest ever distribution of wealth from the richer in society to the less well off via the recovery act and middle class tax cuts.
Those are only the things he got done; forget about what he has pursued and not got done (as yet): Gitmo, cap-and-trade, winding down Iraq war, DADT etc.
Warren Terra
@August J. Pollak:
For those of us who can’t recall, and can’t be bothered to Google, who was it exactly who uttered that quote about Dubya, and when?
stuckinred
Barnicle just imparted his morning wisdom. Teabaggers are not racists they just want “the schools to be the way they USED to be and for their to be more civility”! Fuckin A right, segregated schools and if you say a word about it we’ll lynch your ass!
Davis X. Machina
It’s Lewis Lapham’s fault. Everyone who sits in that chair at Harpers’ faces the task of having to be even more jaundiced than Lapham, which is impossible, without being half as talented as Lapham, because nobody is.
As for Harpers’ turning on Obama a year ago — they just know their audience.
A good third of the left-of-center turned on Obama the day he took the oath, because he took the oath. Because they know all politicians are venal and corrupt. Because they know any contact with power is infectious. Because winning elections makes you The Man.
I’m old enough to remember MK Ultra, Watergate, and the Church Report. I’m old enough to remember the ‘68 assassinations. I grew up watching Boston machine politics from the inside. And all my years with the Jesuits taught me to take the inherent depravity of mankind and give the points.
But I haven’t figured out another way to run things that doesn’t involve power, there is no society without coercion, and I haven’t seen a politics yet that didn’t have politicians, going back to Cleisthenes. (Before him, there wasn’t any.)
stuckinred
@Davis X. Machina: Nice call.
Warren Terra
@August J. Pollak:
(Oh, and by the way, I think you’re being very unfair to those people who defend what has been, a truly awful record on habeas aside, a fairly accomplished moderate-liberal administration, under conditions of economic crisis and partisan opposition that make what they gave gotten done really quite striking).
RE Hodge, the Harpers editorials are always quite vociferously over the top in speaking truth to power as they see it. This makes for essays of righteous beauty when the subject is due process of law, but a rather more muddled record for economic issues, as justifiable complaints degenerate into content-free plagues on both their houses, with the Democrats, as the party from which a bit better might be hoped, receiving special attention.
Warren Terra
@Davis X. Machina:
“This”, as the kids say.
Suck It Up!
I was wondering when this was book was going to come out.
Linda Featheringill
@lawguy:
1. Bipartisanship
2. Closing down Gitmo
3. Filling vacant federal benches with intelligent and competent people
4. The Public Option [yes he did try]
5. Winning the war in Afghanistan
Will that do? [I gotta get to work. :-)]
Suck It Up!
Interesting. I actually wonder why there is so much disappointment among intellectual liberals who know their history.
Chrisd
@August J. Pollak:
I was resigned to take your post as completely sincere encomium, not at all over the top for this blog, until my memory was jogged by the helpful comment #16.
If you had added a “transitional figure” in there, I’m quite sure I would have never caught the snark.
That’s my observation about the “perfervid devotion” around these parts.
Lavocat
You’re clapping too loudly! Perhaps if you clapped a little less loudly, you’d be able to hear Hope leaving the room (Change never arrived, BTW).
cat48
@JPL:
I think he needs someone to sell stuff for him; a nice safe white guy w/ a good personality…….Goolsbee is pretty good and of course, he could use Elizabeth Warren, too, if she has time because she’s excellent. Economics needs to be hit constantly and I really don’t think he has time nor needs to be “exposed” that much. Selling is his main weakness.
zattarra
We’ve got health care reform passed. He put in place policies to give affordable insurance to 30+ million more Americans, he’ll get my re-election vote right there and needs no other reason. But there is much more. Unemployment is not 25%. The auto industry was saved and also forced to become more efficient in the process. We no longer pay banks just to pay them for student loans. We have financial reform that everyone says is weak but the industry is spending hundred of millions of dollars in campaign contirbutions and lobbying to overturn so I’m thinking it’s better than the so called experts think (judge it by it’s enemies, same for health care). We’ve mostly left Iraq, I do believe we will start leaving Afghanistan in 2011. There has been no successful terrorist attack on US soil. We’re trying and convicting actual terrorists in actual not kangaroo courts. DADT repeal is sitting in a piece of must pass legislation, not waiting to be amended in, is in and would need to be ammended out – they say the presdident didn’t do enough for it but who else got it in there. I don’t know, I’m good – still not seeing where I have been betrayed.
And I’m not even a Democrat so I don’t think it’s a party loyalty thing. I’m an independant who voted Hillary in the Primary (we have open primaries here) so I haven’t been a blind Obama supporter since day 1. But I’ve been impressed by policy from this White House. Politics, not so much but policy yes. And if this isn’t the hardest working president in my lifetime (born under Nixon) I don’t know who is – especially compared to his immediate predecessor.
Steeplejack
@Warren Terra:
That was John Hinderaker on the Power Line Blog, July 28, 2005.
Nick
@cat48:
Yes, well, that’s often difficult when no retailer will pick up your product and you’re stuck doing it on your own.
MikeJ
What’s most annoying to me is the people who say, “he was supposed to change everything!” and apparently expected him to shut down the senate or otherwise force them to do everything he wanted.
valdivia
@Davis X. Machina:
yep.
I would say though that Harpers had turned on Obama even before he got elected. They were pretty critical of him even before the election. See their former DC chief on Obama for example, Silverstein.
BR
@cat48:
This is it right here. I’ve been emailing folks I know asking why they haven’t had Goolsbee out there every day selling the administration. The guy has a safe slightly Texan accent and can rip up bullshit arguments thrown at him without breaking stride.
JGabriel
mistermix:
I think Hodge’s subtitle answers that: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism.
A number of people who supported Obama expected him to govern as a forcefully assertive liberal – despite all evidence in his policy platforms, town halls, and debate answers that he would govern as a fairly mainstream Democrat, left on social policy but leaning slightly to the right on finance and defense.
They voted for the orator/activist and got the politician/bureaucrat, and now they feel: betrayed.
I don’t agree with them, but they’re not completely wrong. Obama has been a disappointment on civil liberties; the strategy of over-relying on predator drones in the AfPak theatre is turning into a diplomatic and PR nightmare; health care reform was pretty weak tea (though I hold out hope for improvements down the line); ditto finance reform; the stimulus bill was 60% of the size it should have been, with the consequence that unemployment is still over 17% (U6); and the Republicans are about to make major elective gains in Congress only two years after after they crashed the economy, poured gasoline all over it, and set it aflame.
That said, I don’t feel betrayed. Obama inherited the worst state of the Union since FDR took office. Hodge’s title is obviously polemic and he overstates his case. But I have to say I don’t entirely mind a little pushback from the left. I’m not a fan of uncritically supporting our side, nor am I a fan of letting the critique be controlled by the right.
.
Suck It Up!
I don’t have the patience for another What Has Obama Done For Me Lately threads. There are numerous non-Obot independent sites that list his ridiculously long list of accomplishments so anyone claiming he hasn’t done anything is just straight lying. Others say they are disappointed because he hasn’t done enough. Guess what? it’s never going to be enough no matter who is in office. You take what you can get and build on it over the years like all others before you. You don’t move on to the next after a few months and start looking for another savior.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I paid attention to every single moment of his campaign and along with his big promises and inspiring speeches came some caveats. Critics can pull all his promises but they never seem to find the ones where he basically said – ‘this shit is going to be hard, people are going to wrestle you to the ground before they let you have your way, and you can’t just go flop your asses back on the couch the day after the elections and expect me to do everything by myself.’
Paris
Wasn’t Roger Hodge a member of Supertramp?
General Stuck
Mendacity of Dopes – self important twits with an internet connection. YAWN
Ash Can
What makes me chuckle is the thought of how many (of the same) butthurt liberals would be littering the landscape had Hillary Clinton been elected. Linda Featheringill got it right off the bat:
QFT
Omnes Omnibus
@BR: He was on Colbert last night.
General Stuck
Sarah will increase purity of righteous indignation from the left. With no Obots around to ruin the fun.
JGabriel
Paris:
Roger Hodgson was a member of Supertramp.
This Roger Hodge took over the editorial duties from Lewis Lapham at Harper’s in 2006. Then John MacArthur, the publisher, canned him last January. Apparently, it acrimonious:
So, while it doesn’t rate quite as highly on the ironic reference scale as being part of a semi-famous rock group, there’s still some basis for knowing who Hodge is for his work at Harper’s.
.
Suck It Up!
@cat48:
Sorry, I can’t agree with you there. He’s the first black president and has a name that scares more than 30% of the people in this country. I’m pretty confident in his selling skills. The problem is that he doesn’t have enough high profile people backing him up on a daily basis- in the media. Then you have to consider other factors – the MSM’s non-seriousness, the right wing propaganda machine, the American people’s short attention span/complacency, member’s of your own party not respecting you, corporations wanting to take you down, foreign governments teaming with your opponents to fight your policies, a “base” that needs constant stroking and doesn’t want to be treated like adults and on and on. I’m not saying he is powerless – I’m sure some here will say that’s what I’m saying — but he can’t do it himself. So yes, he needs more surrogates.
Emma
I’ve been sliding into despair for the past two or three months — I know, I know, I held out longer than many of you!
But, honestly, watching people who vociferously opposed Bush’s violations of the Constitution and the rule of law vociferously complain that this President isn’t, well, behaving just like Bush; a sizable minority of the American people losing their flipping minds; the media aiding and abetting the Republicans in their quest to turn the United States into a corporate feudal state; the relentless personal attacks on the President because he’s, hey, those two things a President can never, ever be, a Democrat and black; it takes it out of your heart.
It feels like I’m watching the death throes of the greatest political experiment of all of human history.
JGabriel
Suck It Up!:
I’m not sure whether or not you were responding to my post directly above yours. If so, then my reply is: if you re-read what I wrote, you’ll see that we pretty much agree on 90% of what you said.
The main point of difference is that I still have some patience for critiques from the left, even when I disagree, because I really don’t want to see the media critique, of both Obama in particular and government in general, dominated and controlled by the right
More bluntly, as much as you’ve lost patience with “What Has Obama Done For Me Lately threads”, I’ve lost patience with hippie-punching.
.
joe from Lowell
@MikeJ:
He could stop all the foreclosures and give everybody their houses back like that, if he wanted to.
But he just doesn’t want to, the big meanie.
joe from Lowell
And also, too, I’m concerned about his position on executive power.
After he stops all the foreclosures in the country with a stroke of the pen, he should do something about executive power.
Corner Stone
@Suck It Up!: I’m sorry, were you saying something? I couldn’t hear you over the extremely loud fapping.
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: WRT hippie punching, I see a big difference between offering constructive criticism (or calling the administration out for things that it is doing wrong) and saying Obama is as bad as Bush, etc. YMMV
FlipYrWhig
Oh noes! Obama hasn’t implemented the liberal policy I favor because his own party isn’t especially liberal and the Republicans play procedural tricks! What a betrayal of American liberalism! It’s just like my parents’ betrayal of American capitalism, which happened when I didn’t get a car on my 16th birthday just because they “couldn’t afford it” and I “didn’t have a license yet”!
FlipYrWhig
@Omnes Omnibus: But he’s worse than Bush on the subject of killing American-born terrorists in inaccessible locations, which he hasn’t done, but if he does, feel my wrath and/or despair, world!
Anya
It must kill Lapham that he is associated through marriage with Brian Mulroney, the most corrupt PM in Canadian history.
valdivia
@joe from Lowell:
this. a million times.
tomvox1
No doubt this Hodge guy is an asshole angling to be the House Dem of some right wing rag a la Pat Caddell but when I hear Obama say shit like this, I do get angry with him:
In some ways, I really do believe Obama is beholden to the Reagan-era conception of “Liberal” (which is now accepted as conventional wisdom by the MSM). In fact, Liberalism is responsible for most of the social advancements this country made in the 20th Century. To accept the stereotyped framing of it by the enemies of social justice and try to govern from the squishy center by offending the least amount of people is just foolish. The really powerful interests in this country will never love you and will always try to defeat you. They are not your friends and you can’t cut any deals with them that will satisfy either them or the great majority of the electorate.
Mr. President, embrace your inner FDR and fight the good fight that will benefit the most amount of our citizens while leaving the corporate titans bloodied and whining. It is win-win and you will go down as one of the all-time greats. That is being a Liberal.
Nick
@tomvox1:
because when he fights, he’s sure to win. right?
MBunge
As with many things in life, there are a bunch of reasons for lefty unhappiness with Obama. Some are legitimate. Some not so much.
The one that troubles me the most is the obvious penis envy many liberals have for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. They desperately want to follow the example of the GOP, no matter how destructive it’s actually been for the country and even the Republican Party.
Mike
tomvox1
@Nick:
Yes. Fighting and not winning is all downside, so best not too. That is everyone’s idea of a great leader. Awesome, Nick.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
To paraphrase Churchill re: democracy, Obama has been the worst possible president, except for all the others.
In his first 20 months of his admin there have been crushing disappointments, what I view as woefully misguided policy decisions, and appallingly naive political blunders. Which is to say he is more or less on par for the course if you compare him in an honest and full manner with every Democratic president of the last 100 years (and throw TR into the bargain) and include the warts that everybody likes to forget about after the passage of time.
So I’m going with what Zhou Enlai said when asked what he thought about the impact of the French Revolution: “It is too soon to tell“.
fasteddie9318
I could do without the hyperbole and the hurt fee-fees apparent in that excerpt, but I am sympathetic to Hodge’s arguments about the flawed civil liberties record of this administration. That’s the one area on which I feel it’s legitimate to render a judgment on them a mere two years in, and the one area on which I feel he’s abandoned some of his campaign rhetoric.
fasteddie9318
On the other hand, a look at Hodge’s website reveals that all he’s doing now is popping from conservative outlet to conservative outlet, happily helping to throw dirt on the Democratic Party’s coffin. Because liberalism will be a lot better off with the Republicans back in charge, or something.
lawguy
@Nick: That would be elected for the one and only time not relected.
lawguy
@Linda Featheringill: Well he accomplished none of those goals, mostly through his own fault. And no he never tried to get a public option, but it is nice to know there there are people who can apparently read and write and still believe in the tooth fairy.
lawguy
@joe from Lowell: Way to kick that straw man.
lawguy
@Nick: Well we will never know will we.
JMY
@Nick:
Yep, Democrats sure have his back in his fight against the Chamber of Commerce…
DaBomb
@tomvox1: Actually you need to read the whole article. That’s not what he said.
joe from Lowell
@MBunge:
My theory is that you see this behavior most from liberals who came of age during the presidencies of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. They take their cues on how presidentin’ works from them, and don’t understand why Democrats don’t govern that way.
@lawguy: Uh, yeah, being told “way to kick that strawman” from somebody who just accused another commenter of believing in the tooth fairly isn’t actually as emotionally crushing as you might have thought it would be.
Mnemosyne
@tomvox1:
Go read the whole NY Times Magazine article. There’s a reason that blog post didn’t link to it. (Hint: that’s not the only seriously out-of-context quote in the blog post. The “tax cuts” quote isn’t even close to being accurate, either.)
That blog post was seriously one of the most bizarrely egregious examples of OOC quoting I’ve seen in a long time and it all went in the direction of making lefties mad with Obama. Interesting, that.
DaBomb
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know what that blog was trying to accomplish by publishing out of context quotes.
It’s just lazy journalism on display.
Mnemosyne
@JGabriel:
I wish the people who claim to criticize Obama from the left would actually criticize him from the left instead of echoing right-wing talking points. I wince every time I hear someone on the left claim that Obama is stupid, or denounce “TARP” without specifying what their complaint is. Someone denouncing “TARP” because the stimulus was too small is way different than someone denouncing “TARP” because the auto bailout was a giveaway to the unions, but letting “TARP” stand for “every economic decision of Obama’s that I disagree with” makes it sound like the teabaggers and progressives agree.
Mnemosyne
@DaBomb:
It was trying to make Democrats angry with Obama and depress turnout in November.
Seriously. There’s really no other explanation, especially when you get to the whole part with Obama rejecting Camp David because he’s “more comfortable in urban environments.” WTF is that supposed to mean?
ruemara
@Corner Stone:
You see this, this is why hippie punching stays. For all the whining from those who think they’re being punched, they keep coming back and spouting insults when they aren’t even being attacked.
lacp
@Mnemosyne: Well, the writer could have been a bit more direct using “urban jungles,” but there’s plenty-nuff dog whistle in “urban environments.”
Bubblegum Tate
Roger Hodge? Didn’t he used to host Blind Date?
sherifffruitfly
First question to ask is “Was the person a Clinton supporter in the primary?”.
If yes, you’re done. If no, test some other possible reason.
sherparick
@Linda Featheringill: This is pretty much where I am as well, although I am little more disappointed with the economic policies of the administration. Neither the administration, nor the White House reporters, apparently realize that their problem is the belief that the bankers and other elites have done just fine the last two years, while most of the rest of us have been screwed but good. Felix Salmon gets near to heart of the problem with this post on Laura Tyson and Glenn Hubbard.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/10/12/tyson-and-hubbard-blithe-technocrats/
brewmn
I have been a subscriber to Harper’s for over twenty years, and still love the magazine (although it has been to be sure, “front-running” on the Obama-bashing train since his inauguration).
So, I read a recent lengthy excerpt of Hodges’ book in, I believe, the June issue. And actually agreed with most of it; it seemed pretty evenhanded in assigning blame between Obama, Democrats, and structural issues in our politics. Why he’s selling it as a polemic against the smooth-talking “striver” without a political soul is beyond me. I’m a little curious as to how the entire book comes down.
But not enough to actually read it. If I want to read pages and pages of Obama-bashing idiocy, I’ll just head over to Firedoglake.
AxelFoley
@Suck It Up!:
This. All this.
gerry
How dare anyone be disappointed with Obama. It’s so double-plus ungood.
sparky
@Mnemosyne:
is this serious or just disingenuous? looks like the latter, as you have certainly spent enough time attempting to swat every single critique of Obama raised here. but, on the off chance you have somehow forgotten, let’s try these for starters:
1. civil liberties, including expanding the Bush “the executive is the law” doctrine;
2. escalation of warfare in Afghanistan;
3. arrogation of government power to for profit industry (health insurance);
4. cravenness to Wall St. in a complete refusal to curb excessive abuse of what little remains of a legal and economic regulatory system and “reforms” in FIRE that are nothing of the sort;
5. embrace of Bush-era education privatization.
you want more?
ps: Obama does deserve credit for the potential missile reduction with Russia. other than that, zippo as to anything major.
pps: to the author of this post–mockery is not rhetoric. nor is it interesting, as it tends to reflect rather poorly on the mocker. see, for example, tea party.
JoyfulA
Note comment 9 on the second link, in which the commenter suggests that Hodges’s article in the previous issue, “The Mendacity of Hope,” was nasty and worthless enough to entitle the owner to fire him.
Corner Stone
@ruemara: Bullshit. Utter and complete fucking bullshit.