Mostly, though, it's just dire warnings that he couldn't have been elected without progressives, so he'd better not bite the hand that feeds him. This sort of ridiculous posturing pervades every post campaign let down. Oh, yes, Barack Obama couldn't have been elected without progressives. He also couldn't have been elected without lower-middle class Moms who like to drive to Wal-Mart in their SUVs to buy enormous flat-screen televisions for the family room. Guess which group is larger?
First rule of politics: small groups get favors from the politicians they support only to the extent that it does not annoy large groups who voted for those politicians. Check the progressive agenda. See which bits do not annoy large groups who voted for Obama. That is what the progressives are going to get.
The other group who is in denial, of course, is the conservatives. While the progressives are shocked, shocked that Obama hasn't made Bill Ayers attorney general and Ingrid Newkirk Secretary of Agriculture, many of the conservatives who were mad about my supporting Obama continue to assure me that he is making card check and confiscatory taxation the centerpiece of his administration. Maybe the hard conservatives and the progressives should be consoling each other.
I never thought Obama was a big liberal so am not surprised at his choice of Warren or his cabinet. I wish it were different but politics is politics and I will keep the pressure on for the things I believe in and raise the alarm when some are in danger of being thrown under the bus.
6 comments:
See which bits do not annoy large groups who voted for Obama. That is what the progressives are going to get.
So what's the difference then, between voting for McCain and Obama?
Except that conservatives believe in throwing their base some symbolic victories. Are progressives never allowed to expect that we will get some for OUR efforts?
Warren is a symbol. I get that. So why not choose a symbol that rewards---or at least doesn't antagonize---your base? Nobody asked Obama to pick Rev. Jeremiah Wright--but did he HAVE to pick a guy who just called for the assassination of a foreign leader in the name of Christ?!?! Over and beyond the LGBT issue, is this the best Obama can do?
Doxy
The benediction is by Joseph Lowery, here, a stalwart of the civil rights movement.
I dunno - is it balance - is it some sort of post political party movement going on? How can we keep Obama's feet to the fire on marriage rights?
The Warren choice was so gratuitously offensive (or did Obama think he owed more to Warren, than he did to LGBTs/allies/people-for-human-rights-for-ALL? There's a scary thought...)
FWIW, I'm hoping he (Obama) will change his mind.
Well, I certainly hope that this Warren bit isn't a harbinger of what the GLBT community can expect from Obama.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Obama isn't a progressive. There are no mainstream progressives in American politics. For better or worse, he's a moderate conservative, with occasionally mild leftist leanings, like the Clintons.
That's what passes for "liberal" in the Democratic party.
The issue here in the good ol' U.S. of A. is that the other party is 10 times worse. So even when I basically like the Democratic candidate (as I did this time), my vote is still just as much a vote against the Republicans as anything...
To All:
What David said times 2.
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