Time Writer Angrily Lectures Leftist 'Netroots' Who Won't Support Obama
Time writer Michael Grunwald unloaded on leftists on the Swampland blog on Tuesday -- for not being supportive enough of Barack Obama. The post was titled: "Earth to the Left: Obama Is Into You."
Grunwald was furious that the "disillusionment addicts of the left" would suggest abandoning the Democrat ship. He began with gays-in-the-military activist Dan Choi, who was handed an Obama flyer and "Choi dramatically ripped up the flyer and declared that he wouldn't support Obama."
And why should he? What has Obama ever done to help gays serve openly in the military? Other than repeal don't-ask-don't-tell, so that gays can serve openly in the military? Ah, "the professional left," never happy unless it's unhappy.
When White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer tried to explain during a later panel that Obama is the most progressive president ever on gay rights, the Daily Kos blogger who was moderating cut him off: "That's a pretty low bar."
With friends like these, who needs Republicans? If the primary theme of the Obama era is the insanity of the right --attacking government-run health care and Medicare cuts simultaneously, demanding deficit reduction through deficit-busting tax cuts, denying climate science -- the secondary theme is the ingratitude of the left. And the latter infuriates the White House far more than the former, the way a rebellious teenage son causes far more angst than a crazy old neighbor.
It's true that President Obama is not as liberal as some Daily Kos bloggers would like him to be. (Although he has blogged at Daily Kos.) He continued some of President Bush's national security policies. (Although he did end the war in Iraq.) He ignored left-wing calls to nationalize troubled banks. (Which turned out to be the right call.) He's pushed for middle-class tax cuts and public-employee wage freezes that his base dislikes, and he's outsourced most of the Republican-bashing that his base craves. (Which may be why he's way more popular than his party.)
None of this should have been a surprise; in The Audacity of Hope, he made it clear that he's a market-oriented, consensus-seeking pragmatist, and he repeatedly criticized knee-jerk paleoliberals who don't appreciate the dynamism of capitalism or the limits of government.
Somehow, though, the disillusionment addicts of the left have concocted a narrative of Obama-as-sellout that bears little resemblance to his actual presidency. Democratic infighting is usually described as a "circular firing squad," but this is more like soldiers fragging their commander in battle because he isn't screaming loud enough.
Grunwald was mad about the left's demands on socializing medicine through a "public option" that eschews private insurance companies:
Earth to the left: He didn’t have the votes for a public option. There was nothing he could have said or done to get the votes for a public option. He’s a politician, not a magician.
Then Obama didn’t fight hard enough for cap-and-trade, because he didn’t care about climate change. Or maybe, just maybe, because once again he didn’t have the votes. After all, his stimulus included an unheard-of $90 billion for clean energy, including record spending on efficiency, renewables, advanced biorefineries, electric vehicles, the smart grid, and factories to build all that green stuff in the U.S.
But when you’re convinced the president just isn’t that into you, the facts are irrelevant.
- Tim Graham's blog
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Comments
Dan Choi will no longer support Obama?!
Submitted by Galvanic on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:05pm.
Well, then he must be a racist.
Uh, YEAH!
Submitted by johnsonl on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:10pm.
And anti-straight!
Not only that, but his brother Bok is a strict vegetarian.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 6:31pm.
.
Lefties are just too funny.
Submitted by johnsonl on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:09pm.
Their lives are based on wishes, dreams, equality, social justice, unicorns and rainbows. Liberals never let facts, reality or logic get in the way of their fantasies.
He's "into" you, alright.
Submitted by CobraMan on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:17pm.
Yea, Obama's "into" you, alright, for about three TRILLION dollars of debt!
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. The US Constitution
Unless you're a fetus. The US Supreme Court
Or Anwar al-Awlaki.
This guy
Submitted by jon_torlin on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:48pm.
Remember that insane dude that would get on youtube and would be screaming "Leave Britney alone!!!!" and etc?
Well, this joker is like the exact opposite, the way his rant was going on. I kinda half-expected to see a youtube version of that from someone.
Come to think of it, that would be high-larious if someone did that.
-Jon
Obama really is the man of
Submitted by deerjerkydave on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 4:37pm.
Obama really is the man of the media. I've repeatedly seen them clash with the far left in defense of their president.
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"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. -James Madison"I didn't know him well, but he always seemed pleasant..."
Submitted by Chris Norman on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 8:02pm.
Funny, from the picture Grunwald looks like a nice clean cut young man - entirely normal. Who would guess that such crazed Obama adulation would lurk inside of him until it burst out in a rant like this. It's always those normal-looking ones....
His seeming sycophantish
Submitted by classicliberal2 on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 8:47pm.
His seeming sycophantish attitude, there, seems more designed to trash liberals than to adore the Obama.
Huh?
Submitted by Chris Norman on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 12:50am.
Since I don't know the man, I'll have to go by what he writes. He's trashing other liberals for not being properly adoring of Obama. Why would he trash fellow liberals just for the sake of trashing liberals otherwise?
It's unfortunate that
Submitted by classicliberal2 on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 8:45pm.
It's unfortunate that Grunwald can so clearly see the Republicans for what they are, but is so demonstrably blind to what the Obama has been. Many liberals share that ailment, actually.
In the real world, the Obama has governed, in pretty much every significant particular, as a conservative Republican, but Grunwald characterizes those who point this out as being merely "disillusionment addicts" who have concocted a phony narrative of his presidency. That phony narrative, in this case, is simply the public record.
Grunwald doesn't seem to be very well-versed in that public record. For example, he chalks up the failure of the public option in the health care bill to a lack of votes, but the reason it died had nothing to do with that (the Democrats did, in fact, have majority support for the public option in both bodies). It was killed because Obama cut a backroom deal with the industry. He negotiated it away right up front. It was, in effect, never even on the table.
It should be noted, as well, that the idea of the public option itself was merely a crumb Obama had held out to the liberals he had already screwed by adopting the health care plan he did. Stripped of it, Obamacare was a conservative Republican plan--nothing more than a national version of Romneycare, which had been a version of a plan developed by congressional Republicans in the 1990s as an alternative to the Clinton health care plan (which was, itself, based on a conservative Republican plan). That’s the bill’s lineage. Except for a stray feature here and there (minor ones), it has no history among the liberals at all. The liberals wanted single-payer. That would have been a very tough--maybe impossible--sell in congress (though not with the public, which has supported single-payer for years), but tough, easy, or anything in between, Obama never even considered it, and nothing at all would have been FAR better than what he actually managed to get passed--a welfare bill for the insurance industry.
Jobs are the big concern of the liberals and of the public, but the Obama has done little for them. He pressed for that stimulus bill, early on, but it was too small, poorly directed for a proper stimulus, and larded up with less stimulative tax cuts (in a vain, stupid effort to get Republicans on board). All but three Repubs voted against it, but over half of the Republicans caucus in congress then returned home to take credit for all the money it was pouring into their states and districts. As endorsements go, that’s good enough for me. Obama gave lip-service support for the Democratic anti-offshoring bill, designed to remove incentives for American companies offshoring jobs and offer generous incentives for them to move already offshored jobs back to the U.S. It had majority support, but, as usual, Obama didn't do a thing to help it--barely even mentioned it, in fact--and Senate Republicans were allowed to filibuster it to death. At a time of such high unemployment, this should have been a major scandal; instead, it was barely even mentioned by anyone--most of the public was never even told it existed. In Obama's latest "jobs" initiative, he apparently decided unemployment was still too low, and negotiated nearly $39 billion in budget cuts with House Republicans, cuts that will wipe out nearly 400,000 jobs.
The Obama has involved the U.S. in yet another stupid and unnecessary war. Given no less than two opportunities to appoint justices to the Supreme Court--one of the most important things presidents do--he has chosen to move the court--already reactionary to the point of illness--even further to the right. Only days before the BP disaster vividly illustrated the "wisdom" of combining deep-water oil drilling with deregulation, he was pushing for further deep-water drilling. Likewise, he pimped for more nuclear plants just before Japan demonstrated the "wisdom" of that. He signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the well-off. The Obama has continued Bush’s wars. The "last combat troops" allegedly left Iraq last year, yet 50,000 servicemen are still there, the war continues, and the casualties and expense continue to mount with no clearer aim than the operation ever had. The Obama's alleged drawdown in Afghanistan, which has been the subject of so much hype the last few days, is merely a planned withdrawal of the "surge" forces he, himself, sent there. Obama has refused to prosecute or even significantly investigate the criminal wrongdoing of the previous regime. He has maintained and even defended, against every significant challenge, Bush’s assertions of fascistic powers.
And so on. From a policy standpoint, this administration would, only a few years ago, have been regarded, uncontroversially, as conservative Republican. That’s not some phony narrative someone has concocted. That's the real-life Obama record.
Ignore the lying classicTurd2 troll.
Submitted by The Vet on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 3:50am.
All this turd does is cut and past either his own spew from his blog no one visits or plagerizes other turds on the libtoiletweb.
Do not read this turd's posts.
Do not respond to this turd's posts.
RIDE ON TURD.
Isn't he a prominent
Submitted by buddyc on Wed, 06/22/2011 - 10:45pm.
Isn't he a prominent "Journolist" hack?
I don't consider anyone involved in that a journalist. They belong to the Leni Reifinstahl school of journalism. Look what she produced!