Needs rereading. 2010 article. "Liberal criticism of Obama is out of tough-love"
This was written by Robert Kuttner in August 2010...looking ahead to the November midterm elections. It is basically like he could have written it today. It behind a firewall at the Boston Globe now, but I found it at Clelsea Green.
I think it goes beyond saying that President Obama is a brilliant man. He is a caring person. He has a blind spot where public school teachers are concerned, but that is a post for another time.
However I think Kuttner's words about his conciliatory manner are still as true now. He does appear to fight back more than he did in 2010, so that's a good thing. In my mind there are still too many policies in which he and other Democrats should be taking stronger stands
Robert Kuttner refers to the time that Robert Gibbs used the words "the professional left" and offended just about all of us.
Liberal criticism of Obama is out of tough-love
Gibbs said the "professional left" will "be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon
As co-editor of a liberal magazine whose stance has ranged from polite pleading to occasional exasperation, I have to say that Gibbs misses the point entirely. Few liberals are critical of this president out of ideological purity. Even fewer want to eliminate the Pentagon.
Most progressives fervently supported Obama. Many of us imagined a rendezvous between a brilliant outsider politician and a practical crisis rooted in failed conservative ideology — a Roosevelt moment.
....The George W. Bush view that the private sector can do nothing wrong and government nothing right crashed the economy. In repairing the damage, Obama had an opportunity to restore a more balanced form of capitalism and to make it a governing philosophy shared by a majority of Americans, just as FDR did.
....Politics is the art of the possible, but also the art of leadership. President Roosevelt’s Democratic Party gained seats in Congress in 1934, the first mid-term election after Roosevelt took office, despite unemployment exceeding 15 percent. Ordinary Americans knew Roosevelt was on their side.
....With his temporizing, Obama has left independent voters perplexed and the Democratic base dispirited. Democrats are now at risk of an epic legislative defeat this November, leaving Obama with even less running room to provide the recovery program that the country needs.
Kuttner's most vital words were tucked down near the end of the article.
So for the most part, liberals are criticizing our president out of tough love. We dearly want him to succeed. For if he fails, we fail.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thanks, MF. I hope this gets the point across to the sector of DU that has dismissed criticism of any action (or inaction of the President) as Obama bashing. 
good to see you. The thing is....by morning I will have to find it and kick it myself.
