Left Already Disappointed With Choosing Obama
Posted on November 23, 2008
They wouldn’t be any happier if their nominee would have been Hillary or if McCain would have won, but the question some are asking is….would there have been any difference? Of those three choices, perhaps not. When you have to choose between typical politician, typical known manipulative politician, and typically overblown popular politician/god….the choice you really have is…typical politician, typical politician, or lying typical politician. Moderate liberal hawk (McCain), moderate liberal hawk (Clinton), or far-left militant liberal dove (Obama) is what the nutroots thought the choice was when they chose Obama. Now that Obama has the power, it’s beginning to look like the honeymoon is over. Hopefully this will turn out to be a good thing for the rest of us, but don’t get your hopes up.
For the Left, what should be their greatest triumph is turning to disappointment. As they realize their beloved candidate might not really share their world view, their bitterness will rise. Whether that will have any political ramifications remains to be seen. But one thing is sure — for the hard Left the honeymoon is over.
I want to start out with my personal liberal friend, whom I warned about Obama, Gun Toting Liberal who quotes James Kirchick of The New York Daily News:
They should take a deep breath before reaching such conclusions. Only 22% of voters this year consider themselves “liberal” while 34% call themselves “conservative,” numbers roughly unchanged from four years ago. And as Doug Schoen pointed out in this space, it was moderates, not liberals, who played the decisive role in electing Barack Obama President. Obama knows this, which is why he has repudiated the Netroots time and time again, on issues ranging from Iraq withdrawal to FISA reform. Equally important, he rejected the hyperventilating wing of the party tonally, as evidenced by the calm and systematic way he ran his campaign.
The week before Tuesday’s meeting, Obama let it be known that he bore “no grudge” against Lieberman. …”
FISA reform? Fuggitabout it — “Steve-O” was and always HAS been in favor of the felonious “Telecom Immunity” crappola. He’s all about it, in fact. I resent that. I suppose that makes me a “Netroot”. Fine. I can live with that.
“CHANGE”
Is that what we call it when a president-elect appoints a MAJOR, “Israel Can Do No Wrong” brand of Zionist in Rauhm Emanuel to be his White House Chief Of Staff? Iran — look out, here we come. Nothing against Israel, but face it — just like our United States, they ARE capable of screwing up once in awhile and it would be a nice change of pace for the White House to be just a LITTLE bit more “objective” when it comes to the topic. Now, I’m not holding my breath.
Furthermore; is it really “change” when one of his very next moves was to appoint well-known former G.O.P. ACTIVIST and Wal-Mart Director Sir Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton to the position of Secretary Of State? The woman’s never sniffed a military conflict she hasn’t liked, including Iraq. And folks, “Steve=O” is, again — “all about it”.
Sorry to say, but it’s beginning to sound like “Four More Years” more and more every day during this transition.
So Obama bites the left hand that fed him. Just last month Obama was a socialist. Now he is a radical moderate centrist. It’s all so very pragmatic. Pragmatic is the word you use when your ideals fall, but only after people have fallen for you.
If Obama listened to the Netroots’ advice all the time he wouldn’t be president-elect [...] he generally ignored the Netroots’ advice and, for the most part, he was wise to do so. He ran a far smarter and more disciplined campaign than I could have ever dreamed up.
Leaky Obama aides already think Obama made a mistake in picking Hillary:
“He’s making a mistake.” As one of the participants told a friend later that night: “She’ll do a good job but she’ll do it for herself, not for Barack. I can’t bear the drama again.”…
The Obama aides who went for coffee on Wednesday discussed how the initial tentative talks between Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were leaked by the Clinton camp, then how every twist and turn of the financial vetting found its way into the media.
Those in Mrs Clinton’s camp who wanted her to take the job wanted the financial issue off the table believing Mr Obama would find any excuse not to give her the job.
“They can’t help themselves,” the Obama aide told his friend, a fellow Democrat strategist. “Every event is a potential ladder up or a bullet to be dodged. They’re positioning and spinning all the time. They lost. Now we seem to be handing them the farm.”
The likelihood that Mr Obama will retain George W Bush’s Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has reinforced the notion that he will not aggressively pursue the radical withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq over the next 16 months and engagement with rogue states that he has pledged.
Chris Bowers of the influential OpenLeft.com blog complained: “That is, over all, a centre-right foreign policy team. I feel incredibly frustrated. Progressives are being entirely left out of Obama’s major appointments so far.”
Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos site, the in-house talking shop for the anti-war Left, warned that Democrats risk sounding “tone deaf” to the views of “the American electorate that voted in overwhelming numbers for change from the discredited Bush policies.”
A spokesman for the President-elect was forced to confirm that Mr Obama holds to his previous views. “His position on Iraq has not changed and will not change.”
But the growing disillusionment underlines the fine line Mr Obama must walk between appearing to reach out to former opponents and keeping his grassroot supporters happy
The right are noticing too:
“So a mere two weeks after victory, ‘hope and change’ and ‘a break from the past’ reified into parceling out posts to dozens of Clintonite retreads, plenty of the old requisite Ivy-League law degrees, ample influence from establishment ex-lobbyists, de rigueur Sidwell Friends for the kids, and apparent sudden existential angst and uncertainty over FISA, getting out pronto from Iraq, closing down the Constitution-shredding Gitmo, and overturning the McCarthyite Patriot Act—and all to acclaim and relief from aristocratic Beltway pundits of both parties? So that was all the election was about? Just new faces on the same old, same old?” Actually, I was hoping for not too much change, so I’m fairly happy with this . . . .
Barack Obama’s signature issue in the primaries was his “good judgment” to oppose the Iraq war. He invoked this more than any other qualification in his early battles with Hillary Clinton. She may have experience, he’d charge, but she lacked the wisdom to oppose the war. Indeed, the whole Democratic establishment was somehow corrupt or out of touch for not opposing the war, according to the Obamaphiles. So now Barack Obama is going to appoint Hillary Clinton to be the chief architect of his foreign policy. Moreover, he picked Joe Biden to be his running mate and “partner” in the White House explicitly because of his foreign policy experience and judgment. But wait: Joe Biden, too, supported the war. Meanwhile, at Defense, it looks like he will keep George W. Bush’s man, Robert Gates. Admittedly, Gates has always been more nuanced about the war than, say, Don Rumsfeld. But surely keeping Bush’s SecDef is not exactly what the anti-war Dems had in mind as “change we can believe in.” Heck, Joe Lieberman’s sitting pretty and he endorsed McCain. It will be interesting to see how long Obama’s charisma can paper over reality.
Daniel Larison of the American Conservative:
In terms of the level of engagement and the size of the audience, taken as a whole the netroots reaches a significant portion of the Democratic Party’s most active supporters. Journalists and pundits may have the luxury of writing off these people and ignoring their concerns, but the Democratic leadership and Obama do not. The politicians nonetheless seem to be exhausting progressives’ patience far more rapidly than even George W. Bush did with conservatives. It is common for party leaders to take reliable supporters for granted, but usually not so early on and not so comprehensively as Democratic leaders seem to be doing now.
I admit, so far his cabinet picks are better than I had dared to hope. That is not the end of the story by any means. There are thousands of executive branch positions that we rarely hear about, many of which have enormous influence over important matters of policy. Plenty of those will go to very left wing people. Still, the first-string cabinet is a lot more centrist than I would have guessed on November 3, which is good news for the country and probably bad news for those Republicans who are banking on stupid lefty policy blunders to return them to power.
Politicians want to be re-elected but I’m sure it’s disappointing for those who think Obama is a different kind of politician. It’s early — Obama hasn’t even been inaugurated — but the media and blogs are already reporting on campaign promises Obama hasn’t kept. That makes me wonder:
I can’t think of any campaign promises Obama has kept. Can you?
Oh well, let me calm the left down a bit. I think reality is more on the side of Dan Riehl:
As for me, while I’m glad to see Obama taking International affairs and potential threats seriously, the Right and Center-Right need to be careful of reading too much into that. I suspect Obama’s designs for domestic policy are still going to tilt rather Left. And that is the ultimate downside for free markets and free thinking people from an administration which is still genuinely liberal at heart.
…and David Sirota:
Please, don’t try to claim that because the Democratic Party is supposedly “the left,” that means its “center-right” is actually the “center” of American public opinion. Votes on Iraq, the bailout, FISA, deregulation, free trade, etc. etc. have shown us that the “center-right” of the Democratic Party is at least the “center-right” of America - if not the full-on right.
In terms of the New York Times story, at least we know the undeniable (if unsurprising) reality now, and can strategize around it and use the far more progressive election mandate as momentum - rather than simply pretending to live in an alternate reality.
LOL!! The Nutroots don’t matter and it’s high time someone told them so. The wild, irate, miserable, hate-filled people who make up this very tiny extremely small portion of American people SEEM to think they have more clout than they really do. The test of time will come for Obama. I would actually respect him a little if he continues to ignore these most vile citizens.
Change baby, change! Looks like we are in for a wild ride of drama for the next four years.
“On the other hand, without a conservative version of the Kossacks, there may never be another Republican President.”
The Other McCain notes many nutroots in denial.
So when I see the sharp end of the stick for the Democrats – the netroots – wailing and gnashing their teeth that Obama has “betrayed” them with his personnel picks and by not kicking Lieberman out of the party, I can’t help but smile and be heartened that it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
To the left: In Obama’s defense he was built up to be Jesus, JFK, MLK, Castro and Lenin all in one, it is inevitable he would never live up to it. If you had any sense you wouldn’t have built those expectations up. Welcome to reality.
To the right: Don’t fall for the center move. Most of it is camouflage. Obama has a far left agenda. How he goes about making it happen will prove whether he is an evil genius or just another politician for power.
Jules Crittenden has a great roundup of reactions.
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Barack Obama, Change? What Change?, Conservatism, Delusional Dupes and DUmmies, Democrats, Dems In Charge: Now What?, Earmarks, Economy, Elections, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, McCain, National Security, News, Politics As Usual, Psychology, RINOS, Republicans, Socialism, Supreme Court, U.S. Presidency, War On Terror, military
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14 Responses to “Left Already Disappointed With Choosing Obama”
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Perhaps there is a way to prevent Dan Riehl’s awful projection for domestic policy from becoming reality. If only the NetRoots would hold Obama’s domestic policy hostage to their “peace on earth” goals.
For example, “no National Health Care until all our soldiers come home.” Another: “No Civilian Defense Force until we make peace with Islam.”
Any takers for the job of agent provocateur?
Obama is attempting to look centrist but he will be forced to the extreme left by Pelosi and Reid..
They will continue to support him because they have no choice just as we supported McCain.
A lot of premature “phew, he’s not as bad as we thought” nonsense. He’s just not stupid, that’s all. And he’s not even in office yet. Obama is a leftist, and the true clue to his leftism will be how he tries to reshape public discourse. Leftism has always, above all, been about speech. Speech control is how it maintains political control. Obama wants two terms and a legacy of progressive hegemony in American life and to achieve this he needs (and deeply desires) the annihilation of formative and formidable political dissent. This is what to watch.
The effects of black rule can be witnessed in Africa GDP$800 Ave pa. Aids 42%, Lifespan 47yrs, You breed a Donkey with a Horse,you get a Mule. [dumb and stubborn]
If Obama has not fulfilled any promises he made to get elected, Its because he has not taken office yet. Give the guy a break. He is stepping into a pile of it and it will take a while to undo what Bush did.
Oh please. The left will be cheering when Obama’s Middle East peace plan leaves Isreal in pile of rubble.
Sorry, James, mules are intelligent creatures, far smarter than horses. Mules would not go into battle during the Civil War. When they heard gunfire, they’d turn and run. Horses would just stand around and get shot.
But the analogy aside, you are right that Africa has become a hellish place for whatever reason.
Obama said anything he had to say to get elected. He’s the archetypal unwanted child who has to win the big contest to prove his worth to the world. Hope his wife is proud of our nation now.
Hey, America! Do we REALLY want 4 MORE years of a Clinton Administration?????
Yep! Bring it ON! When Clinton was in the White House jobs were plentiful. Back then if you didn’t have a job it was because either you didn’t want one or you were unable to work. So, the last 8 years of Bush really worked well, huh?
Most outcrosses in Genetics are stronger and smarter than their individual parents. I do not think that Barack Obama had any unwanted feelings. Like me he was probably taught by his mother that he was an improvement on both races. The comments on this page show how inbreeding is really dangerous and ultimately a dead end.
Obama used Bill Cinton’s campaign theme from 1992 (change) to win this election decisively. It only stands to reason that he’ll pad his administration with a lot of ex-Clinton administration bureaucrats. This buffers any far-left inclinations he may have, but does not eliminate them. As soon as Bill Clinton started pandering to the far-left, the Dems got slaughtered in congress. There is a reasonable probability that this ill happen again, as history already seems to be repeating itself. “Change we need!”, “Change we can believe in” — yeah,right. Can the Dems screw things up more? “Yes we can!”. I’d love to be proven horribly wrong about my sarcasm, but I don’t think I will be.
Serbella McGee -
If you want 8 years of a Clinton-style administration, then you also want 6 years of GOP-controlled congress? That is what helped drive Bill Clinton forward and away from the far-left (he learned his lesson in 1994). That might not be so bad after all…
What I find more than a bit disturbing is that bizarre and unwarranted comparisons that Obama is given to JFK, RFK, MLK, and even Lincoln. What do all of these really have in common? They were all assassinated. I have an uneasy feeling that Obama will have the same outcome if he upsets some of his left-wing fringe support to profoundly — the ones that blindly elected him as a Messiah, the most emotionally unstable, and which will be the most bitterly disappointed. Yes, the far-right “racists” could take some shots at him too, but it’s his own disgruntled allies and inner circle that are the biggest risk.