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Posted on 08/08/2011 5:16:53 PM PDT by mandaladon
In a new sign of President Obama's troubles with his Democratic base, liberal bloggers and activists are buzzing over a new essay that is profoundly critical of Obama's supposed betrayal of liberal ideals.
The article is "What Happened to Obama?" by Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen. Writing in Sunday's New York Times, Westen argues that Obama's "deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics" -- by that, Westen means the political tactics of the Republican party -- have resulted not just in Obama's failing to achieve economic recovery and significant reforms but in his setting back the cause of recovery and reform for "at least a generation."
Like many liberals, Westen wants Obama to fight every moment of every day against what Westen views as the evils of the modern Republican party. For Westen, disillusionment began on Inauguration Day, when Westen hoped Obama would use his first speech as president to "tell [Americans] a story that made sense of what they had just been through." Westen wanted to hear Obama attack the "greed" and "recklessness" of "conservative extremists" and "Wall Street gamblers" who nearly destroyed the economy. Westen wanted Obama to declare war on the bad guys. Instead, Obama's inaugural address was entirely unremarkable; he didn't say much of anything. "There was no story," Westen writes, "and there has been none since."
Worse was to come. Westen wanted Obama, once in office, to kick Republican butt all over Washington. He longed to hear Obama say that voters had elected Democrats "to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement." But instead of keeping Republicans under his heel, Obama negotiated with them.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com ...
Better an incompetent marxist than a competent one.
There are truly many people living in this Country who are from a different planet.
'Obama has done so poorly because he hasn't driven his marxist policies hard enough'...
Geeze...weren't these people paying attention to all those Countries that tried out Marxism and Socialism in the 20th Century? ... And these clowns vote...
Liberals are dumb by definition. They are the scientific equivalent of folks who think you can step in a can and lift yourself by pulling on the handles. Math is not (nor ever has) been their friend.
However, Obama is dumb even when compared to “normal libs” (oxymoron)?
This cretin defines stupid.
He has hidden his academic records for a good reason.
Harvard law? Bwahahahahaa.
Harvard law is now the 1980s Cadillac of law schools - fake chrome on a plastic nameplate cheaply glued to a junky Chevy. They graduated the Obamaloon - and they must live with the never ending embarassment.
The left can never understand why anyone would violently disagree with them, hence their permanent state of delusion.
Nor was he ever “up to the task”
And Drew Westen was never qualified to graduate from high school, much less obtain a Ph.D.
liberals are delusional. They are pretending like the Democrats did not have a full 2 years ramming through massive big government liberal policies. In their pea brains, somehow the Republicans ‘stopped’ him from being liberal, but they could not stop a thing with the super-majorities in both houses.
Even now, there is nothing going through the houses of congress not skewed towards existing liberal doctrinaire. Any ‘cuts’ are just trimming around the edges - not even a small percentage rollback of the trillions in new spending of the previous congress. All policies of the previous two years fully intact.
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Idiots. He’s exactly what they elected: an immature, undereducated, narcissistic, elitist, entitled, inexperienced boob. Don’t know why they’re complaining - he’s being exactly who he is.
It was far more important for the MSM to investigate the status of Joe the plumber Wurzelbacher's trade license, and the DNA of Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome child.
This is the genius tactic conservatives must use for the 2012 campaign: Obama is not a leader.
He had a fillibuster-proof majority in Congress and the opportunity to pass whatever legislation he wanted.
Obama could have had a single payer system in place if had introduced the legislation himself and pushed for its passage.
Instead, he deferred to Pelosi/Reid to write and negotiate the legislation and everything got bogged-down in the mire of politics, wasting precious time as the liberals lost seats due to acts of God (don’t ever tell me he does not bless this nation).
Liberals had the golden opportunity and it was lost because Obama could not lead his party to the promised land.
If conservatives were given the same majorities in Congress and a weak conservative President, we would be equally pissed.
Keep reminding liberals of what they lost by electing Obama.
Here’s why Kerry thinks he can flank Obama to the left.
Just imagine for one minute that Obama’s name was spelled: B-U-S-H!
If they think weak-kneed Republicans are being too harsh toward Obama, just think what those RATS would have done if his name was spelled B-U-S-H.
Obama, you were a loser from day one (I mean the day you were born - but no one knows what date that was exactly).
You got that right. Rush was trying to get Hillary elected. Her and obama are the same, she just knows what she is doing and how to do it.
Excellent post...I second your idea.
It wasn't, as Weston says, that nobody bothered to explain the policies, though. It was that the policies were the usual laundry list that parties and movements have. They weren't designed to solve the actual and pressing economic problems the country had. Rather, they were part the usual Washington pork-barrel politics, and part Obama's gift to the left, which he was going to let down in other ways. Since the policies weren't really focused on improving the economy to begin with and didn't really make things better, a "story" that explained how they would fix it really wouldn't find many believers.
This is worth noting:
The most charitable explanation is that he and his advisers have succumbed to a view of electoral success to which many Democrats succumb — that “centrist” voters like “centrist” politicians. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated. Centrist voters prefer honest politicians who help them solve their problems. A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.
Kind of late in the game to finally realize all that, though.
Obama is a runner, not a leader.
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