Tuesday, December 8, 2009

And Now, Disgruntled Liberals

Via Andrew Sullivan, equal time for former liberals, as disgusted by angry left-wing attacks on Obama as some conservatives are by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck:
Maybe the initial illuminating moment came when I learned that Tom Hayden, the anti-Vietnam war activist, had removed the Obama bumper sticker from his car. All I know is that I can hardly stand reading the Huffington Post these days. The stuff coming out of "progressive" mouths is all too often on a par with Glenn Beck's abusive rants--both sides (right and left wingers) playing thousand-pound national football with the President as the ball. . . .
Afghanistan has been a big issue for liberals, and lots of leftists are also upset about the bailout for fatcat bankers, the failure to do more for the unemployed, and the hyperbolically complex compromises of the health care bills, when they would much prefer a single-payer system. Hey, so would I. But until we get a different Senate, there isn't much Obama can do about that.

Obama is obviously a mainstream, moderate democrat who got a wholly undeserved reputation for radicalism by opposing the invasion of Iraq. People who are angry about how he has governed must not have been paying attention to what he said during the campaign. Or else they hoped he was lying, which is a rather strange thing to hope about your political leaders.

1 comment:

Thomas said...

And the ridiculousness is that Obama made this clear from the get-go, back when he opposed the Iraq war. He said he wasn't against all wars, just stupid wars, and clearly indicated throughout the campaign that he planned to escalate the war in Afghanistan.