Only a liberal president would extend benefits to gay domestic partners and move to double the regulatory load on the financial sector on the same day.
The question about Barack Obama is whether he is liberal enough. Despite his major moves leftward on economic and social issues since taking office, his base continues to have doubts.
Those on the Left who are anti-establishment bomb throwers, like Bill Maher, certainly find Obama to be insufficiently liberal. Part of the appeal of the Left for them is to fight the power.
Obama is cool with the power. He is more of a European-style Social Democrat — he accepts the erosion of the culture and favors engineering the social order.
Being a Social Democrat is like being the captain of a riverboat. You believe your job is to make the trip downriver as smooth as possible.
Now the bomb throwers must live with a politically correct, corporate-approved nanny state that has all the appeal of a diversity day lecture at work.
Much of the far-Left resentment of Obama comes from the Iraq war. Many hard-line liberals rebuilt their worldview on the basis that George W. Bush was a criminal who may have killed 3,000 of his fellow Americans on Sept. 11 just to avenge his father and help the oil industry and precipitate the Rapture.
We’re still bombing places in the Third World and haven’t sent Dick Cheney to The Hague for trial, and that leaves these folks feeling aggrieved.
But they don’t count for much politically, as just part of the fifth of Americans who identify themselves as liberals. And they even help the Obama administration with the argument that the president is a centrist.
In fact, the administration itself is the greatest purveyor of the idea the Obama has somehow broken with the Left.
Discussing the administration’s plan to change the Federal Reserve from a protector of the currency into a regulatory behemoth, the president told the Wall Street Journal he favored a “light touch” when it came to the economy. Yeah, like Lenny in “Of Mice
and Men.”
But these statements come with a wink. In almost six months in power, Obama has done nothing conservative and everyone knows it, including the reporters being spun.
Rahm Emanuel may spend hours purring into the phone to David Brooks, but that doesn’t mean the president is a secret conservative. It just means he cares about controlling the message.
And while the approach worked during the campaign, Obama’s policies are driving people out of the middle. Part of the problem is that the establishment media lacks the punch it once had, and it’s moderating influence has been replaced by political firebreathers.
NBC managed some pretty good numbers with a two-night, prime-time special earlier this month on life at home with the Obamas. So now ABC will do two days on just health care from the White House.
NBC anchor Brian Williams did a buddy picture with the president — getting some burgers, playing with the dog, holding his gaze just long enough to let him know there’s so much about their friendship that just can’t be said. Typical bromance stuff.
But could anything be grimmer than listening to Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer talking about public insurance options and mandates for two days? Thank heaven for Netflix.
Aside from the mostly irrelevant, radical Left and the obliging folks in the establishment press, there are some liberals who are starting to show misgivings about Obama, and it’s not about ideology. It’s about competence.
Gay issue advocates, some of the most politically savvy activists, forced Obama to extend federal benefits to gay domestic partners at a moment when the president can hardly afford another distraction — especially on an issue with health insurance at its core.
But by withholding contributions, applying media pressure, and getting an obliging Hillary Clinton to make a similar move at State Department, gay activists made Obama jump.
Complaints from liberals like these represent an underlying concern that Obama can’t deliver.
At the outset, liberals accepted Obama’s implicit bargain that if they would play along and not spook Mr. and Mrs. America, he would have the power and the opportunity to make all their dreams come true later on.
As health care seems to be failing fast, cap and trade has been consigned to subcommittee limbo, and the stimulus package continues to bomb, practical liberals may increasingly decide to get theirs while they can.
