{"id":3770,"date":"2008-12-08T09:03:27","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T14:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3770"},"modified":"2008-12-08T09:03:27","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T14:03:27","slug":"its-a-chicago-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=3770","title":{"rendered":"It’s A Chicago Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liberals are Lupset that Obama, mirabile dictu<\/em>, is actually acting pragmatic<\/a> now that he’s in office:<\/p>\n

Even supporters make clear they\u2019re on the lookout for backsliding. \u201cThere\u2019s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,\u201d said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America\u2019s Future.Obama insists he hasn\u2019t abandoned the goals that made him feel to some like a liberal savior. But the left\u2019s bill of particulars against Obama is long, and growing.<\/p>\n

Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won\u2019t enact the tax.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he\u2019s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he\u2019ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democrats even more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.<\/p>\n

Now Obama\u2019s says that on his first day in office he will begin to \u201cdesign a plan for a responsible drawdown,\u201d as he told NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d Sunday. Obama has also filled his national security positions with supporters of the Iraq war: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize force in Iraq, as his secretary of state; and President George W. Bush\u2019s defense secretary, Robert Gates, continuing in the same role.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why, it’s almost as if Obama harnessed the immense frantic manic normally-aimless energy of the left to get into office…<\/p>\n

…and then is tacking to the center because he has to be a grownup now.<\/p>\n

But the kids are still angry:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere don’t seem to be any liberals in Obama’s cabinet,\u201d writes John Aravosis, the editor of Americablog.com. \u201cWhat does all of this mean for Obama’s policies, and just as important, Obama Supreme Court announcements?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, it reminds me a bit of the campaign, at least the beginning and the middle, when the Obama campaign didn’t seem particularly interested in reaching out to progressives,\u201d Aravosis continues. \u201cOnce they realized that in order to win they needed to marshal everyone on their side, the reaching out began. I hope we’re not seeing a similar \u2018we can do it alone\u2019 approach in the transition team.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s almost like some of ’em get it – without knowing it…:<\/p>\n

OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: \u201cIsn’t there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simple fact, Chris – one that I suspect Obama (and\/or his staff) are smart enough to see:\u00a0 the American people might express manic dissatisfaction with one Administration or another (including the sitting administration, which is actually center-left on spending), but at the end of the day the American people are <\/em>center-right conservatives.<\/p>\n

We just don’t always vote that way.<\/p>\n

Yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liberals are Lupset that Obama, mirabile dictu, is actually acting pragmatic now that he’s in office: Even supporters make clear they\u2019re on the lookout for backsliding. \u201cThere\u2019s a concern that he keep his basic promises and people are going to watch him,\u201d said Roger Hickey, a co-founder of Campaign for America\u2019s Future.Obama insists he hasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-president-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}