and I was right unfortunately.
I am becoming a bit concerned with certain things in the blogoshere and media (including today's column by Frank Rich) that seem to parallel 1993. Then Bill Clinton won the Presidency and his top campaign promise was healthcare reform. However, before he even took the oath of office extremists on the Left began pushing for immediate action on several pet issues. Republicans used these as wedge issues to paint Clinton and the Dems as radicals thus eroding support among moderate/centerist voters. As a result, Clinton was denied his honeymoon period, healthcare reform was dead on arrival and the GOP over took Congress in 1994.
And if Congress had never been taken over by the Republicans there never would have been an impeachment and thus Al Gore wouldn't have had that as a milstone around his neck in the 2000 election so Bush never would have been elected. Plus the country would have never been distracted and could have focused on terrorism possibly avoiding 9/11. With Gore as President instead of Bush and no 9/11 attack; the invasion of Iraq and most of the bad things that have happened in this country never would have occured.
Unfortunately I see the same thing happening now. President Obama inherited a mess unlike any other President in history a financial crisis, two wars, Global Climate change, a broken Heathcare and Education system all of which need to be priorities but many on the left attacking President Obama because he had not moved quickly or far enough on their particular pet issue. On whole I see their attitudes breaking down as follows:
1. Making the perfect the enemy of the good - So even if the President takes action to fix something and give the left 99% of what they wanted it is still not good enough.
2. Impatience - Somethings take time and cannot be fixed in a day, yet many are complaining because the President hasn't fixed something despite being in office for only 4 months. As stated above their are other major priorities right now that the President needs to be focused on.
3. Outright ignorance of the system - Some thing President Obama can just wave a magic wand and change something. In most cases he needs Congress to approve of his actions, he's not a dictator.
4. Downright political naiveté - Some seem to ignore the fact that the GOP and right even exists. They will use whatever weapon they can against him and create wedge issues. The President needs to spend his political capital wisely lest he risks alienating centerists the way Clinton did.
Now I'm not saying that most of these issues are not the right thing to do because they are. But I'm also a realist and a pragmatist and realize that on some issues the country and the congress can only be moved so far at the moment. And sometimes as a society we need to take baby steps rather than giant leaps. If JFK had proposed civil right legislation on his first day in office, he would have never gotten it through or any of the other issues on his agenda. Instead he waited until June of '63 when the country was ready for it. Same is true of FDR and Social Security. No way he could have proposed Social Security in 1933. He had to wait several years until the country until was ready for it and he had enough political capital to push it through.
I think the same is true of the current situation. If President Obama can re-invigorate the economy, get healthcare and climate change legislation passed; he'll have the political capital to fix many of these other issues. If he tries to push them through first, he may lose that capital and never be able to get the major legislation passed like Clinton.
Now I've not mentioned any of these issues by name because I don't want this to be about any single one issue but about the political climate that I find increasingly disturbing from the left, especially when people like Glen Greenwald and Rachel Maddow demonize the President and distort what he says. We don't accept when the right uses these tactics, so why should we accept it from the left.
Nor am I saying that we should just accept anything the President does. But we do need to end all the demagoguery and at least give him a more reasonable amount of time to get everything done.
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