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Showing Original Post only (View all)How Obama outsmarts his critics -- on the left and on the right. [View all]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.htmlBut the right isnt alone in getting Obama wrong. While the left is less unhinged in its critique, it is just as likely to miss the screen for the pixels. From the start, liberals projected onto Obama absurd notions of what a president can actually do in a polarized country, where anything requires 60 Senate votes even to stand a chance of making it into law. They have described him as a hapless tool of Wall Street, a continuation of Bush in civil liberties, a cloistered elitist unable to grasp the populist moment that is his historic opportunity. They rail against his attempts to reach a Grand Bargain on entitlement reform. They decry his too-small stimulus, his too-weak financial reform, and his too-cautious approach to gay civil rights. They despair that he reacts to rabid Republican assaults with lofty appeals to unity and compromise.
They miss, it seems to me, two vital things. The first is the simple scale of what has been accomplished on issues liberals say they care about. A depression was averted. The bail-out of the auto industry wasamazinglysuccessful. Even the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by a recovering banking sector. The Iraq Warthe issue that made Obama the nomineehas been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. Defense is being cut steadily, even as Obama has moved his own party away from a Pelosi-style reflexive defense of all federal entitlements. Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels. Under Obama, a crucial state, New York, made marriage equality for gays an irreversible fact of American life. Gays now openly serve in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act is dying in the courts, undefended by the Obama Justice Department. Vast government money has been poured into noncarbon energy investments, via the stimulus. Fuel-emission standards have been drastically increased. Torture was ended. Two moderately liberal women replaced men on the Supreme Court. Oh, yes, and the liberal holy grail that eluded Johnson and Carter and Clinton, nearly universal health care, has been set into law. Politifact recently noted that of 508 specific promises, a third had been fulfilled and only two have not had some action taken on them. To have done all this while simultaneously battling an economic hurricane makes Obama about as honest a follow-through artist as anyone can expect from a politician.
What liberals have never understood about Obama is that he practices a show-dont-tell, long-game form of domestic politics. What matters to him is what he can get done, not what he can immediately take credit for. And so I railed against him for the better part of two years for dragging his feet on gay issues. But what he was doing was getting his Republican defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to move before he did. The man who made the case for repeal of dont ask, dont tell was, in the end, Adm. Mike Mullen. This took timeas did his painstaking change in the rule barring HIV-positive immigrants and touristsbut the slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner in which it was accomplished made the changes more durable. Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.
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but you have "nearly universal health care"... except for the tens of millions who don't nt
msongs
Jan 2012
#2
It hasn't fully taken effect yet. No one knows how many will fall through the cracks then.
pnwmom
Jan 2012
#9
I remember reading that the percent of African American voters was smaller in 2010 when Obama
pnwmom
Jan 2012
#10
What do you mean "going after tehadist lies"? You already showed that you agreed with those lies.
joshcryer
Jan 2012
#95
The Catfood Commission was presented to the general public as tasked with reducing
eridani
Jan 2012
#97
Wonderful. Let's keep campaign promises even if they contradict what voters want
eridani
Jan 2012
#80
You gotta respect him for that. I personally saw his deficit hawking and war hawking...
joshcryer
Jan 2012
#82
Assimilating the language and accepting the conservative policy toolbox are not things to develop a
TheKentuckian
Jan 2012
#17
You nailed it. Republican talking points are now bipartisan talking points
woo me with science
Jan 2012
#19
Those "assimilating the language" are those who bought the Republican lies and...
joshcryer
Jan 2012
#73
Activists should've known better, a lot of them did, particularly in the cities.
joshcryer
Jan 2012
#90
What in the world is it to appreciate about these commitees that Obama forces?
TheKentuckian
Jan 2012
#104
Phrased differently, Obama's major accomplishments are: 1) he paid Wall Street trillions so
leveymg
Jan 2012
#11
then i draw the conclusion that your neighbors keep up with current events much more than the
arely staircase
Jan 2012
#111
Obama never called for Social Security to be slashed. Why are you pretending? n/t
pnwmom
Jan 2012
#40
Wait ... I know ... he's going to annouce his plan to gut SS at the State of the Union!!!!!
JoePhilly
Jan 2012
#46
Yup, it isn't really attempted murder if you survive the attack, no matter how many attacks.
TheKentuckian
Jan 2012
#107
I read 21% 2 yrs ago, seems like it's declining, which means not holding steady.
FarLeftFist
Jan 2012
#44
Let me state that Obama is in sad shape when he has to have a conservative like Sullivan
MadHound
Jan 2012
#16
"A caveat: I write this as an unabashed supporter of Obama from early 2007 on. "
quinnox
Jan 2012
#30
Ah, the old "chessmaster" line is making a comeback just in time for the election.
hughee99
Jan 2012
#31
I like how this article exposes the left's anti-Obama crowd to things like logic, reasoning and fact
FarLeftFist
Jan 2012
#36
It's pretty appalling when issues that are important to the daily life of working people
EFerrari
Jan 2012
#53
It's pretty appalling that so-called Progressives would be knocking the HUGE progress this President
FarLeftFist
Jan 2012
#57
Your response begs the question of "huge progress". Or that Obama is in any way progressive.
EFerrari
Jan 2012
#59
Your response begs the question who are you comparing his progressivism to?
FarLeftFist
Jan 2012
#76