[jsherman999]

Interesting article here, by conservative writer Andrew Sullivan.

Summarizes a lot of my own feelings on the subject.

Excerpts:

"...A president in the last year of his first term will always get attacked mercilessly by his partisan opponents, and also, often, by the feistier members of his base. And when unemployment is at remarkably high levels, and with the national debt setting records, the criticism will—and should be—even fiercer. But this time, with this president, something different has happened. It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply—empirically—wrong."

"...On foreign policy, the right-wing critiques have been the most unhinged. Romney accuses the president of apologizing for America, and others all but accuse him of treason and appeasement. Instead, Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death. And when the moment for decision came, the president overruled both his secretary of state and vice president in ordering the riskiest—but most ambitious—plan on the table. He even personally ordered the extra helicopters that saved the mission. It was a triumph, not only in killing America’s primary global enemy, but in getting a massive trove of intelligence to undermine al Qaeda even further. If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted."

"...Or take the issue of the banks. Liberals have derided him as a captive of Wall Street, of being railroaded by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner into a too-passive response to the recklessness of the major U.S. banks. But it’s worth recalling that at the start of 2009, any responsible president’s priority would have been stabilization of the financial system, not the exacting of revenge. Obama was not elected, despite liberal fantasies, to be a left-wing crusader. He was elected as a pragmatic, unifying reformist who would be more responsible than Bush.

And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end."


"... Nothing in his first term—including the complicated multiyear rollout of universal health care—can be understood if you do not realize that Obama was always planning for eight years, not four. And if he is reelected, he will have won a battle more important than 2008: for it will be a mandate for an eight-year shift away from the excesses of inequality, overreach abroad, and reckless deficit spending of the last three decades. It will recapitalize him to entrench what he has done already and make it irreversible."


"...If I sound biased, that’s because I am. Biased toward the actual record, not the spin; biased toward a president who has conducted himself with grace and calm under incredible pressure, who has had to manage crises not seen since the Second World War and the Depression, and who as yet has not had a single significant scandal to his name. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” George Orwell once wrote. What I see in front of my nose is a president whose character, record, and promise remain as grotesquely underappreciated now as they were absurdly hyped in 2008. And I feel confident that sooner rather than later, the American people will come to see his first term from the same calm, sane perspective. And decide to finish what they started."



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Last edited by jsherman999; 01-17-2012 at 03:37 PM.

[Nesster]

Thank you for posting this, yes, these are good things to remember and to keep in mind.

And pretty much consistent with my thinking too

[JinDesu]

Great read, thank you.

[cardinal43]

+1 jsherman999

[les3547]

Anderson Cooper interviews Sullivan, with Bay Buchanan opposing. I think he holds off Buchanan rather well:

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

[grhazelton]

Thanks for the post!

Nice to see a calm, reasoned discussion from a moderate conservative. Now, where is the moderate liberal counterpart?

[Nesster]

Thanks for the post!

Nice to see a calm, reasoned discussion from a moderate conservative. Now, where is the moderate liberal counterpart?

I thought I and a few others have been making these moderate liberal comments all along?

However, maybe you meant someone on a soap box? Here's something:
Bob Cesca: Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

I hate to have to preface anything with qualifiers like this, but, likewise, I disagree with the president on a number of things despite firmly believing that his record has been successful within the frame of progressivism as well as within the frame of the average American voter. Since it's mandatory to do so in order to be taken seriously these days in certain progressive circles, I vocally spoke out against the debt deal and cautioned that spending cuts would harm economic growth. I argued against anti-gay preacher Rick Warren delivering the invocation at the inauguration. At every mention, I've opposed the continuation of the war on terror and, with it, indefinite detention. I opposed the president signing the four-year renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act. The expansion of TSA body scanners is an on-going source of disgust. I can't get beyond the fact that Joe Biden supported the Bush-era bankruptcy bill. I have repeatedly spoken out against the president repeating the meme that tax cuts create jobs. I wasn't happy with the signing of the NDAA, though not for all of the reasons anti-Obama critics have (often erroneously) enumerated. Oh, and I once wrote a piece here comparing the president to George McFly, for crying out loud.

,,
Since the beginning of the Obama presidency, though, I've been beating the drum for "smart accountability" in the progressive movement -- a path for the movement to maintain its credibility and a means of consistently holding leadership accountable for its actions, while also not shooting the broader movement in the foot by ostracizing and undermining the most progressive-friendly administration in generations with screechy white noise and perpetually dissatisfied griping.

Petitioning a politically friendlier administration should carry with it a vastly different tone than petitioning an unfriendly administration (obviously, President Obama is the former and Bush the latter). In finer terms, it's easier to convince a center-left president to take on a far-left cause than it would be to convince a center-right or far-right president. Therefore progressives should make a case for their position to the friendlier leader without seeming irrational or unreasonable. And if dissatisfaction isn't modulated and tempered, and, instead, progressives lapse into apoplexy at every headline, their views get lost in a cacophonous blast of nothing. To the people tasked with actually moving ideas through the sausage factory of government every day, it's very easy for the constant loud noises to be met with, There goes the left -- they're screeching again. Ignore. For similar reasons, the administration will never really listen to the ceaseless and dissonant cannonade from far-right talk radio, which is so consistently off the rails and hysterical, there's no foothold for discussion or understanding. So why bother?

The better approach with this president, instead, is to simply make an effective case for a position, point by wonky point, without the nonsense (i.e. "worse than Bush," and the like). For example, during the health care reform debate, Steve Benen wrote a memorandum and delivered it to the Democratic leadership, and, as I recall, the White House used some of Benen's suggestions. Additionally, the White House has created an online petition system and, as we witnessed with this week's administration decision to opposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), they actually pay attention to the results.

As I've written numerous times here and elsewhere: this president's biography indicates that he responds to reasoned, rational discussion, and there is nothing in his biography indicating he reacts to shouting. Nothing.


..


I fail to understand why it's somehow robotic or mindless to applaud as well as to jeer. Rachel Maddow, for her part, has been highly critical of the president when criticism is deserved, and she's also never shy about pointing out his successes. I don't think any sane progressive would suggest that Maddow is an Obamabot. In fact, I can't think of a more effective reporter, journalist and, yes, storyteller on television. But more than anything else, Maddow has shown an aptitude for fairness and reality in a cablecast parade of cheap shots and ratings stunts. Her balancing of applause with constructive criticism is something to be admired and replicated throughout the rest of the progressive movement.

,,,
By my accounting, and conservatively speaking (small "c" conservative), there are more than 100 achievements of varying importance ranging from the rescue of the economy from the brink of another Great Depression to the rescue of the American auto industry to the largest middle class tax cut in American history to the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. At the very least, and not insignificantly, President Obama's ideas and political savvy paved the way for African-Americans to finally reach the highest political office in the world. The last segregated office is now multi-racial. This can't be understated or ignored. Furthermore, the president just wrapped his third year in office and, much to the chagrin of the far-right, he has at least another year in which to tackle more items on the to-do list.

These items and dozens more are legitimate and undeniable successes, some of them are historically important and many of them are distinctly liberal. Some of them are compromised successes for the sake of passage through a deeply divided Congress and some of them are exacting and untouched. (Various critics note the president had a filibuster-proof 60 Democratic vote supermajority in the Senate for his first two years. This is a fallacy as the Democrats have never been a lockstep caucus. There were at least 10 conservative Democrats like Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson who vigorously opposed legislation like cap-and-trade and the public option and who often voted or threatened to vote with the Republicans to filibuster such items.)

..


So despite differences on the progressive side, can't we agree that, in numerical terms if not ideological terms, the victories outweigh the failures by a notable ratio, even if the failures seem, on the surface, considerably disturbing? Therefore, shouldn't a positive evaluation be in order? As a movement that regards itself as being reality-based, a measured analysis is crucial to realistically evaluating the president so far. Admitting to a larger number of successes than failures won't make you less vigilant and it won't make you less capable of holding the president accountable.

On that note, I'd like to suggest that progressives calm down and attempt to have a rational discussion about the areas where we differ, areas where we agree and how to proceed regarding the president. But any sane discussion has to revolve around objective facts and observation. The central question is this: should we undermine the most progressive-minded president in at least a generation and will his failure to attain a second term help or hurt the progressive cause? Will his failure pave the way for a more progressive president or a less progressive president? At the gate of an election year this is the debate on the left. I hold out hope that it will be a unifying one.

[grhazelton]

I thought I and a few others have been making these moderate liberal comments all along?

However, maybe you meant someone on a soap box? Here's something:
Bob Cesca: Progressives, Obamabots and a Realistic Evaluation of the President

My apologies. Your comments and those of many fellow Pentaxians have been thoughtful and reasoned. And thank you for the link to HuffPost; I had overlooked it.

But I doubt that you get the national exposure of Bob Cesca's "soap box." Would that you and Mr Cesca were the norm in liberal discourse. The liberal ranters who excoriate Obama ought to consider the prospect of a Romney or Santorum victory in November. President Obama isn't perfect, but better his second term than one of the above.

[Nesster]

The liberal ranters who excoriate Obama ought to consider the prospect of a Romney or Santorum victory in November. President Obama isn't perfect, but better his second term than one of the above.

We know a bunch of these ranters in real life; they refused to vote for the Democrat against Bush because 'they are all hypocrites and liars' and voted for some crank or another, or didn't vote. Thanks to these (quite possibly) we had 8 years of Bush.

[jsherman999]

Nice to see a calm, reasoned discussion from a moderate conservative. Now, where is the moderate liberal counterpart?

Moderate liberals can be found everywhere, including on this forum.

Another great one with a soapbox, though, is Krugman.


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[GeneV]

My apologies. Your comments and those of many fellow Pentaxians have been thoughtful and reasoned. And thank you for the link to HuffPost; I had overlooked it.

But I doubt that you get the national exposure of Bob Cesca's "soap box." Would that you and Mr Cesca were the norm in liberal discourse. The liberal ranters who excoriate Obama ought to consider the prospect of a Romney or Santorum victory in November. President Obama isn't perfect, but better his second term than one of the above.

Or worse, we could have Gingrich.

[grhazelton]

Or worse, we could have Gingrich.

Please, the mere thought makes me ill. He is about the most opportunistic S******h I've ever heard of. When he was Speaker of the House my father commented that Gingrich would either become president or blow himself up. Would that my father were alive and I could hear his thoughts on the current Crop o' Clowns.

[grhazelton]

We know a bunch of these ranters in real life; they refused to vote for the Democrat against Bush because 'they are all hypocrites and liars' and voted for some crank or another, or didn't vote. Thanks to these (quite possibly) we had 8 years of Bush.

Yep, I have a good friend who is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. But, he voted for the Greens in 2008, apparenlty unable or unwilling to recognize that sometimes ya gotta take the best available - and most likely to win - candidate. My guess is that Nader's supporters cost Al Gore the 2000 election. Gore, for all his faults, would have left us far, far better off in 2008 than did Dubya.

[jolepp]

All over the place, including on this forum.

Another great one with a soapbox, though, is Krugman.
.

+1 : The thought of his NYT op-ed immediately popped to my mind as well: AFAIK he is a self-confessed liberal and seems reasonable / moderate to me (but then I'm not entirely sure what that might mean over there, it sometimes seems that something akin to Minitrue has been at your vocabulary ).

[jsherman999]

Congratulations, Mr President.