Liberals voice concerns about Obama

[ray245]

Liberals are growing increasingly nervous – and some just flat-out angry – that President-elect Barack Obama seems to be stiffing them on Cabinet jobs and policy choices.

Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Even supporters make clear they’re on the lookout for backsliding. “There’s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,” said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America’s Future.

Obama insists he hasn’t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left’s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.

Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won’t enact the tax.

Obama’s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he’s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he’ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.

Obama’s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democrats even more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.

Now Obama’s says that on his first day in office he will begin to “design a plan for a responsible drawdown,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Obama has also filled his national security positions with supporters of the Iraq war: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize force in Iraq, as his secretary of state; and President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, continuing in the same role.

The central premise of the left’s criticism is direct – don’t bite the hand that feeds, Mr. President-elect. The Internet that helped him so much during the election is lighting up with irritation and critiques.

“There don't seem to be any liberals in Obama's cabinet,” writes John Aravosis, the editor of Americablog.com. “What does all of this mean for Obama's policies, and just as important, Obama Supreme Court announcements?”

“Actually, it reminds me a bit of the campaign, at least the beginning and the middle, when the Obama campaign didn't seem particularly interested in reaching out to progressives,” Aravosis continues. “Once they realized that in order to win they needed to marshal everyone on their side, the reaching out began. I hope we're not seeing a similar ‘we can do it alone’ approach in the transition team.”

This isn’t the first liberal letdown over Obama, who promptly angered the left after winning the Democratic primary by announcing he backed a compromise that would allow warrantless wiretapping on U.S. soil to continue.



Now it’s Obama’s Cabinet moves that are drawing the most fire. It’s not just that he’s picked Clinton and Gates. It’s that liberal Democrats say they’re hard-pressed to find one of their own on Obama’s team so far – particularly on the economic side, where people like Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers are hardly viewed as pro-labor.

“At his announcement of an economic team there was no secretary of labor. If you don’t think the labor secretary is on the same level as treasury secretary, that gives me pause,” said Jonathan Tasini, who runs the website workinglife.org. “The president-elect wouldn't be president-elect without labor."

During the campaign Obama gained labor support by saying he favored legislation that would make it easier for unions to form inside companies. The “card check” bill would get rid of a secret-ballot method of voting to form a union and replace it with a system that would require companies to recognize unions simply if a majority of workers signed cards saying they want one. Obama still supports that legislation, aides say – but union leaders are worried that he no longer talks it up much as president-elect.

“It's complicated,” said Tasini, who challenged Clinton for Senate in 2006. “On the one hand, the guy hasn't even taken office yet so it's a little hasty to be criticizing him. On the other hand, there is legitimate cause for concern. I think people are still waiting but there is some edginess about this.”

That’s a view that seems to have kept some progressive leaders holding their fire. There are signs of a struggle within the left wing of the Democratic Party about whether it’s just too soon to criticize Obama -- and if there’s really anything to complain about just yet.

Case in point: One of the Campaign for America’s Future blogs commented on Obama’s decision not to tax oil companies’ windfall profits saying, “Between this move and the move to wait to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, it seems like the Obama team is buying into the right-wing frame that raising any taxes - even those on the richest citizens and wealthiest corporations - is bad for the economy.”

Yet Campaign for America’s Future will be join about 150 progressive organizations, economists and labor groups to release a statement Tuesday in support of a large economic stimulus package like the one Obama has proposed, said Hickey, a co-founder of the group.

“I’ve heard the most grousing about the windfall profits tax, but on the other hand, Obama has committed himself to a stimulus package that makes a down payment on energy efficiency and green jobs,” Hickey said. “The old argument was, here’s how we afford to make these investments – we tax the oil companies’ windfall profits. … The new argument is, in a bad economy that could get worse, we don’t.”

Obama is asking for patience – saying he’s only shifting his stance on some issues because circumstances are shifting.

Aides say he backed off the windfall profits tax because oil prices have
dropped below $80 a barrel. Obama also defended hedging on the Bush tax cuts.

“My economic team right now is examining, do we repeal that through legislation? Do we let it lapse so that, when the Bush tax cuts expire, they're not renewed when it comes to wealthiest Americans?” Obama said on “Meet the Press.” “We don't yet know what the best approach is going to be.”

On Iraq, he says he’s just trying to make sure any U.S. pullout doesn’t ignite “any resurgence of terrorism in Iraq that could threaten our interests.”

Obama has told his supporters to look beyond his appointments, that the change he promised will come from him and that when his administration comes together they will be happy.

“I think that when you ultimately look at what this advisory board looks like, you'll say this is a cross-section of opinion that in some ways reinforces conventional wisdom, in some ways breaks with orthodoxy in all sorts of way,” Obama recently said in response to questions about his appointments during a news conference on the economy.

The leaders of some liberal groups are willing to wait and see.

“He hasn’t had a first day in office,” said John Isaacs, the executive director for Council for Livable World. “To me it’s not as important as who’s there, than what kind of policies they carry out.”

“These aren’t out-and-out liberals on the national security team, but they may be successful implementers of what the Obama national security policy is,” Isaacs added. “We want to see what policies are carried forward, as opposed to appointments.”

Juan Cole, who runs a prominent anti-war blog called Informed Comment, said he worries Obama will get bad advice from Clinton on the Middle East, calling her too pro-Israel and “belligerent” toward Iran. “But overall, my estimation is that he has chosen competence over ideology, and I'm willing to cut him some slack,” Cole said.

Other voices of the left don’t like what they’re seeing so far and aren’t waiting for more before they speak up.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich warned that Obama’s economic team of Summers and Geithner reminded him of John F. Kennedy’s “best and the brightest” team, who blundered in Vietnam despite their blue-chip pedigrees.

David Corn, Washington bureau chief of the liberal magazine Mother Jones, wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that he is “not yet reaching for a pitchfork.”

But the headline of his op-ed sums up his point about Obama’s Cabinet appointments so far: “This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned.”

Your opinions?

[Knife]

He's doing a head fake? Looking center but going to cut left.

[KrauserKrauser]

He's not an idiot? He's not the Lord Jesus Barack Obama that many believed him to be out of outright stupidty? He's a politician and as such will never give you exactly what you want?

Is anyone seriously surprised that he would have to moderate his position in office?

Going issue by issue:

Oil Windfall Profits tax: That's right kids a 10% margin is not in anyway insane for a business. Just because they had billions in profits doesn't mean it cost them billions to make them. Obvious choice that I agree with.

Bush Tax Cuts: This is the easier way. Not only does he not have to not spend political capital to get them repealed, but he can blame Congress for letting them lapse if he absolutely needed to. Makes re-election easier as his opponent wouldn't be able to say he was against Tax Cuts, Congress does it and his hands are tied.

Getting out of Iraq: Did they think he would just magically teleport the soldiers out of there? Either way it will take years to get out of Iraq, thinking otherwise is delusional.

[Gil Hamilton]

Isn't there a saying about how it's better to have your rivals inside your tent, pissing out, than outside your tent, pissing in?

[Yogi]

Obama has said that he'd work with Republicians, so you shouldn't act surprised when he does. He's still the lesser of two evils so be thankful for that.

[ray245]

Which reminds me, is Yahoo news! a little right wing in some way? I don't know, they 'feels' a little right-wing in my opinion.

[Gigaliel]

...so do I just visit the wrong forums or something? I've heard some hem and hawing, but nothing resembling a trend.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

Ahahaha.

“He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?”

Bowers seems to be confusing "Liberals" with "Democratic Party". I would agree with the sentiment that Obama's cabinet is certainly not 100% liberal. However, I'm curious exactly who they're complaining about.

For example, a simple google of Rahm Emmanuel reveal conservatives raging over his liberal values. A few links down, apparently his nomination means he's the same as a Bush appointee, essentially. Seriously, what the hell? Are there even enough qualified honest to god liberals that meet these sort of standards to be appointed?

Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won’t enact the tax.

Obama’s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he’s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he’ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.

Obama’s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democrats even more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.

Now Obama’s says that on his first day in office he will begin to “design a plan for a responsible drawdown,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Obama has also filled his national security positions with supporters of the Iraq war: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize force in Iraq, as his secretary of state; and President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, continuing in the same role.

1. This makes some sense, in that you should probably wait until there's enough populist rage to try this. Maybe when the financial reports come out to remind people of how much money they made.

2. Honestly I can see why he's waiting on this. The number of problems on Obama's desk are stacking up and the cries of "SOCIALISM!" during the general election make it seem like passing such a bill would be a major pain. There are higher priorities.

3. Have these people been paying attention? This has been his position since forever. And I'm going to make a conservative estimate of over half the DNC supporting the Iraq War. Bit difficult to find those who didn't.

“My economic team right now is examining, do we repeal that through legislation? Do we let it lapse so that, when the Bush tax cuts expire, they're not renewed when it comes to wealthiest Americans?” Obama said on “Meet the Press.” “We don't yet know what the best approach is going to be.”

And, of course, he hasn't even made a final decision. We should probably save the indignation for after Obama's election. You will probably have actual reasons by then.

Juan Cole, who runs a prominent anti-war blog called Informed Comment, said he worries Obama will get bad advice from Clinton on the Middle East, calling her too pro-Israel and “belligerent” toward Iran. “But overall, my estimation is that he has chosen competence over ideology, and I'm willing to cut him some slack,” Cole said.

Other voices of the left don’t like what they’re seeing so far and aren’t waiting for more before they speak up.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich warned that Obama’s economic team of Summers and Geithner reminded him of John F. Kennedy’s “best and the brightest” team, who blundered in Vietnam despite their blue-chip pedigrees.

David Corn, Washington bureau chief of the liberal magazine Mother Jones, wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that he is “not yet reaching for a pitchfork.”

But the headline of his op-ed sums up his point about Obama’s Cabinet appointments so far: “This Wasn’t Quite the Change We Envisioned.”

The points on Hillary and the "team of rivals" seem like things that are of concern, actually. We'll see.

Also, I swear if I see one more column where it says

Obama's liberal positions are skewed a bit rightward because he is a U.S. politician.
THEREFORE
NEW BOSS SAME AS THE OLD BOSS.
YOUR CHANGE IS A LIE.
etc.

I will scream.

[KrauserKrauser]

Which reminds me, is Yahoo news! a little right wing in some way? I don't know, they 'feels' a little right-wing in my opinion.

Because it says that Obama is not Left Wing enough?

Does not compute, unless you believe in the VRWC that anything bad about Obama = good times.

[ray245]

Which reminds me, is Yahoo news! a little right wing in some way? I don't know, they 'feels' a little right-wing in my opinion.

Because it says that Obama is not Left Wing enough?

Does not compute, unless you believe in the VRWC that anything bad about Obama = good times.

Not because of this article...but for reasons that I do not even understand myself.

Just a irrational thought out of nowhere I guess. I dunno, they just 'feels' right-wing as a whole.

[erik_t]

What a manufactured pile of nonsense.

[url=http://www.gallup.com%20/poll/112804/Obama-National-Security-Picks-Get-High-Marks.aspx]89% of Democrats approve the selection of Clinton for SecState.[/url]
79% of Democrats approve the continuation of Gates' role as SecDef.
77% of Democrats approve the appointment of some of Bill Clinton's old team.

79% of all Americans approve of Obama's performance so far. The rate among Democrats, based on the Gallup polling, is likely to be substantially higher than this.



Any time you see a WAAAAH OBAMA BETRAYED US story without actual attached polling by a reputable organization, ignore it. I'd have thought the PUMA nonsense would have hammered that lesson home by now.

[General Zod]

Which reminds me, is Yahoo news! a little right wing in some way? I don't know, they 'feels' a little right-wing in my opinion.

Where's the link to this article? I'm not inclined to post an opinion one way or another without knowing where it came from.

[ray245]

Which reminds me, is Yahoo news! a little right wing in some way? I don't know, they 'feels' a little right-wing in my opinion.

Where's the link to this article? I'm not inclined to post an opinion one way or another without knowing where it came from.

Here. Sorry about that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/200812 ... czE_hAw_IE

[The Original Nex]

This is a huge media concoction that "liberals are pissed" about Obama's cabinet picks. Sure some left-wing bloggers are ranting that they feel betrayed by the Cabinet picks, and ooooh the AP managed to find some of them to quote! But that represents a trend? There's no numbers in any polls to suggest that Obama's support among Democrats or Liberals has dropped off significantly since the election.

[General Zod]

This is a huge media concoction that "liberals are pissed" about Obama's cabinet picks. Sure some left-wing bloggers are ranting that they feel betrayed by the Cabinet picks, and ooooh the AP managed to find some of them to quote! But that represents a trend? There's no numbers in any polls to suggest that Obama's support among Democrats or Liberals has dropped off significantly since the election.

I'm inclined to agree with this. It feels a lot like those comedy stints where you'll have someone interviewing dozens of people on the street until they get someone that responds to completely trivial questions in an utterly stupid and mind boggling fashion.

[The Original Nex]

This is a huge media concoction that "liberals are pissed" about Obama's cabinet picks. Sure some left-wing bloggers are ranting that they feel betrayed by the Cabinet picks, and ooooh the AP managed to find some of them to quote! But that represents a trend? There's no numbers in any polls to suggest that Obama's support among Democrats or Liberals has dropped off significantly since the election.

I'm inclined to agree with this. It feels a lot like those comedy stints where you'll have someone interviewing dozens of people on the street until they get someone that responds to completely trivial questions in an utterly stupid and mind boggling fashion.

Yeah, this is really a sign of a bored post-election media inventing stories and controversies.

See this AP article (via HuffPo) as another example: Ooooh "cracks in the foreign policy team!" What cracks? I read the article and I saw no signs of any actual conflict, just a report of Obama's UN Ambassador-designate coordinating in an unusual way with the State Department. In fact the article outright says there's no evidence of a conflict between Ambassador-designate Rice and Secretary-designate Clinton later in the story. Of course that doesn't stop hack AP writers from declaring in the headline and first sentence that "cracks" are forming and clearly trying to imply: "oh noes! Obama's team is already falling apart!!"

The MSM are hacks (not that the blogosphere is any better...)

[Coyote]

Obama, from the beginning, always said he was going for the center. It was delusional hard left and hard right types that dismissed it as "campaign rhetoric" and that he'd be a Marx in sheep's clothing. He's been a centrist and openly espoused centrist views.

A windfall profits tax on oil right at this moment would probably backfire. Now that the oil companies know that people will, in fact, shell out $4.50 for a gallon of gas, any tax on their profits will just be parcelled out to the consumer, 'cause we'll go back to paying $2.00 a gallon just as long as we don't hit that high water mark again. I'd be all for fining the oil companies for war profiteering and price-gouging, with stipulations that profits lost to fines could not be taken out on consumers, but that'd be a hell of a piece of legislation to see pass...

Obama is smart enough to know that a Partisan Left administration will not be any better than a Partisan Right administration has been for the last 8 years. It'll give the Republicans a cause to rally against and we'll see a potentially effective President get bogged down in the tar pit of daily, bitter partisan-struggle politics.

[Edward Yee]

I wonder what those liberal bloggers would think of GEN Shinseki (ret.) as head of VA?

[Covenant]

Plus, appointing a bunch of centrist or right members of cabinet and such doesn't make the entire administration tack to the right. It's silly to build an echo chamber of a cabinet and administration especially when the vast majority of people working for you have no real huge policy-changing advisor role anyway. He could theoretically appoint the exact same administration as the Bush era and get entirely different, more liberal results, if the people who were working for him did their job at providing feedback and attempting to follow through on the given objective. It's not like these guys are free agents.

[SirNitram]

Let's see. President widely seen as progressive, announcing very FDRish plans, cornerstones of the left's basic plans for the short term in the US, and a news outlet decrees the left is upset with him because the people he hires didn't pass some test the news outlet doesn't mention in any detail. Indeed, detail is very scant. As with others, I think this is manufactured. Hell, let me get an explicit quote on the media's basic wants right now..

The Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page acknowledged that the media are hoping for "drama" resulting from a Clinton appointment; Page responded to the question of how Obama is "going to keep the drama at bay" by saying: "Well, do we want that? We're journalists."

They outright love their Clinton drama. If they need to make up drama, they will. Vince Foster, anyone?

[Crown]

There was a clip of this on either Crooks and Liars or One Good Move when that guy from MSNBC (can't remember the name, NOT Olbermann) was asking a Left talking head if he felt 'betrayed' by Obama (like before he's even taken office !).

The guy rather rationally said (and I paraphrase here);

"Not betrayed. Disappointed a little maybe, but not betrayed. President Elect Obama might have used a lot of left rhetoric in his campaign, but he always, clearly, openly said he would govern from the centre or with bi-partisan ideals. I would love for him to go more left, but that's not what he promised."

[Rogue 9]

Which reminds me, is Yahoo news! a little right wing in some way? I don't know, they 'feels' a little right-wing in my opinion.

Yahoo News isn't any more right-wing than the sources it reprints articles from. It produces no original content.

[Big Orange]

I'm not surprised Obama is centre right, but since the last three decades Washington DC was run by administrations who were teetering on far right in terms of social and foreign polcies, with highly Libertarian economic and political policies enacted to serve the select few instead of the general population (and only being moderately less toxic and ideological on Clinton's watch), being a centre right government with a higher degree of competence and some insight would be a much needed breath of fresh air. Hopefully Obama and his crew will just do their fecking jobs instead of using Libertarianism as an ideological cover to dodge real responsibilty, lining their own pockets and expanding their personal power at the expense of everything else like the Bush Administration cretins did.

[Dominus Atheos]

Obama, from the beginning, always said he was going for the center. It was delusional hard left and hard right types that dismissed it as "campaign rhetoric" and that he'd be a Marx in sheep's clothing. He's been a centrist and openly espoused centrist views.

No kidding, you'd have to be an idiot to think Obama was actually a liberal. We'll still get an end to the war and some form of universal health care out of him. But probably gay marriage or civil unions, anything but center-right supreme court justices, the fairness doctrine, or gay rights like adoption and anti-discrimination are too much to ask. The only thing I feel betrayed on is his position that he won't investigate the Bush administrations numerous crimes, and most likely Bush's supporters are going to whitewash his entire record and in twenty years everyone is going to look back and think he wasn't so bad.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Obama is smart enough to know that a Partisan Left administration will not be any better than a Partisan Right administration has been for the last 8 years.

I have to say that I really disagree with this sentiment, which smacks of the "both sides are wrong" Golden Mean. An administration made up of partisan left-wingers would not be ideal but it would still be vastly better than the Bush administration has been. Progressive ideology has a lot of advantages over the social conservative/neocon miasma that Bush used, like respect for science, wariness of the use of force, and the belief that the government can actually accomplish things, just to name a few.

The only thing I feel betrayed on is his position that he won't investigate the Bush administrations numerous crimes, and most likely Bush's supporters are going to whitewash his entire record and in twenty years everyone is going to look back and think he wasn't so bad.

We won't find out for a while I'm pretty sure that you're completely wrong about that. He might not be remembered as an outright criminal, but he's still going to go down in history as a completely terrible president. People talk about getting into Vietnam as a mistake, but it was a mistake that JFK and LBJ made due to inertia and passivity--it probably still would have happened even if Nixon had won the election of 1960. The same can't be said of the war in Iraq. And that's only the most egregious of a long litany of fuckups. From big-time shit like Iraq, Katrina, and this economic meltdown, on to bizarre small-time shit like how his supporters hired a male prostitute to ask him softball questions at press conferences, there are a million reasons that Bush is going to be remembered as a complete presidential clusterfuck by the majority of people. When he dies, people are probably going to say nice stuff about him, but that's about it.

[Ray Gold]

Isn't there a saying about how it's better to have your rivals inside your tent, pissing out, than outside your tent, pissing in?

I am not aware, but in related news, but I am aware that people have said that basically "the higher you go in politics, the more a centrist you have to get" (semi-quote) which is true given the size of the US and if you're the chief executive you have to act that way.

It is understandable that people will be unsure and afraid Obama might still be more 'right-wing' and whatnot. Even when presidents change, often the foreign policy and whatnot does not have a drastic change.