White House unloads anger over criticism from 'professional left’

[Ben]

White House unloads anger over criticism from 'professional left’


By Sam Youngman - 08/10/10


The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.
During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

The White House, constantly under fire from expected enemies on the right, has been frustrated by nightly attacks on cable news shows catering to the left, where Obama and top lieutenants like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have been excoriated for abandoning the public option in healthcare reform; for not moving faster to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay; and for failing, so far, to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

Liberals have criticized Obama and his staff for moving to the middle and bargaining on healthcare reform, as well as the financial regulatory overhaul and even the $787 billion economic stimulus package, which some liberals said should have been larger.

Just last week, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow described Obama political adviser David Axelrod as a “human pretzel” for his explanation of the administration’s position on gay marriage. Axelrod had explained that Obama opposes same-sex marriage but favors equal benefits for partners in gay relationships.

Attacks from liberal political groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which raises money for liberal candidates and causes, are also frustrating to the White House.

Adam Green, one of PCCC’s founders, repeatedly blasted Obama for a “loser mentality” during the healthcare debate, criticizing the president and Emanuel for not trying harder to include the public option in the final healthcare legislation. The group even ran ads accusing Obama of ignoring the will of the millions who voted for him by courting the support of Republican Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe.

PCCC is now pressing Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren, a hero to the left, as the first head of the new consumer protection office created by the Wall Street reform bill.

While visibly frustrated, Gibbs did not specifically name any of the White Houses’s liberal detractors by name.

Green said in an e-mailed statement Monday afternoon, “When Republicans opposed the stimulus and when Joe Lieberman opposed the overwhelmingly popular public option, the president could have barnstormed across their states and demanded they support policies that their constituents wanted — but instead he caved without a fight,” Green said.

Gibbs’s tough comments reflect frustration and some bafflement from the White House, which believes it has done a lot for the left.

In just over 18 months in office, Obama has passed healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform and fair-pay legislation for women, among other bills near and dear to liberals.

Obama is also overseeing the end of the Iraq war, with the U.S. on schedule to end its combat operations by the end of this month.

He’s also added diversity to the Supreme Court by nominating two female justices, including the court’s first Hispanic. Yet some liberal groups have criticized his nominees for not being liberal enough.

“There’s 101 things we’ve done,” said Gibbs, who then mentioned both Iraq and healthcare.

Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished in a shattered economy with uniform Republican opposition and a short amount of time.

Obama reached out to the left — including through a private lunch with Maddow and other liberal commentators — earlier this summer.

In late July, Obama made a surprise video appearance, with an assist from Maddow, at the NetRoots Nation convention in Las Vegas, where the professional left had gathered to grouse about its disappointment in the president.
“I hope you take a moment to consider all we’ve accomplished so far,” Obama said, telling the impatient audience, “We’re not done.”

The lack of appreciation or recognition for what Obama has accomplished has left Gibbs and others in furious disbelief.

Larry Berman, an expert on the presidency and a political science professor at the University of California-Davis, said he has been surprised that liberals aren’t more cognizant of the pragmatism Obama has had to employ to pass landmark reforms.

“The irony, of course, is that Gibbs’s frustration reflects the fact that the conservative opposition has been so effective at undermining the president’s popular approval,” Berman said.

“And from Gibbs’s perspective, and the White House perspective, they ought to be able to catch a break from people who, in their view, should be grateful and appreciative.”

[Ben]

Writer and blogger Glenn Greenwald sums it up pretty well: "Perhaps one day the White House can work itself up to express this sort of sputtering rage against the Right, or the Wall Street thieves who destroyed the American economy, or the permanent factions that control Washington"

[Ben]

[Ben]

Michael Moore has his say:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/38954

[flabbybody]

Ideologically speaking, Richard Nixon and Barack Obama would have a great deal of common agreement. American presidents can never stray too far from the "silent majority". The rules of our government are designed to make meaningful change nearly impossible

[russtafa]

the liberal left dominate the western world

[Ben]

[Ben]

the liberal left dominate the western world

Found this pic comical -- ha!ha!
And, too, according to Noam Chomsky, most CEOs are liberal.
But they're just carrying out their institutional role: maximize return on investment income.
Liberal or conservative has nothing to do with the corporate structure.
I mean, does it matter if Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of Exxon, is liberal or conservative?

[Ben]

Is Robert Gibbs Right About the "Professional Left"?
By Mike Whitney

August 13, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- I figured it out.
I figured out why White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is so pissed off at the professional left. It's because the P.L.'s thought that Barack Obama was sincere when he promised to close Guantanamo, end the war in Iraq, pass a decent health care bill, clean up Wall Street, push through "card check", restore habeas corpus, and change Washington. They didn't realize that the "Hope Campaign" was a fraud and that Obama was another flannel-mouth, silver-spoon, Harvard-educated phony who'd promise anything to get elected, and then kick his supporters down the stairwell as soon as the votes were tallied. They believed in him. They trusted him.

But it isn't the professional left's fault that Obama's numbers are in the toilet or that the Democratic Party is going to get trounced in the upcoming midterms. Oh, no. Our strutting, celluloid hologram president managed that feat himself. All Obama had to do was "fight the good fight"; take on the corporations, the banksters, the Pentagon, the special interests. No one expected him to win.....The winning-part wasn't even important. What was important was sticking up for the little guy who can't afford a high-paid lobbyist to help him keep his house or his job or avoid destitution because his kid broke his fu**ing arm on the school playground and he doesn't have the $150,000 to pay the fu**ing hospital bills. That's all we expected; someone who'd represent ordinary working slobs. Not superman; just somebody who gave a shit.

But that's not what we got, is it? Obama won't fight for anything, because Obama doesn't believe in anything. Period. It's a character-thing; either you got it or you don't. It should have been obvious that Obama didn't have it during the campaign, when he knifed his pastor Jeremiah Wright in the back and tossed him to the sharks to placate Sean Hannity and the right-wing media rabble.

So much for loyalty, eh?

Ask yourself this: Why would anyone give an inch to rightwing blowhards after we just got 8 years of their protofascist vision for America? Huh? Why?

The truth is, Jeremiah Wright is a bigger man than Obama will ever be, because Wright stands for something, believes in something, and has put his life on the line for something.

What does Obama believe in? Charter schools? War in Pakistan? Cuts to Social Security?

Obama can talk-the-talk, but he can't walk-the-walk. He can roll up his sleeves, point at the horizon, and work his magic on a stadium full of fans. But he can't shut down Gitmo, indict a few bankers who blew up the financial system, nationalize an oil company that poisoned an entire quadrant of the country, or charge the people who dragged the country to war on a "pack of lies". Obama is WAY too busy for any of that stuff. He's got much more important matters to tend to. Just think of the photo-ops he'd miss.

Gibbs is right about the professional left. We aren't happy. We are disappointed; crushed really. Dejected, depressed and despairing. It may be the worst case of buyer's remorse in history. We thought we were voting for FDR and we got Ronald Reagan. We got reamed.

The worst part of it is that Obama has cleared the way for a GOP landslide in November followed by 8-years of President Sarah Palin.