White Liberals Turning Against Obama
In "Obama's Racial Crisis," http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson100111.html , Victor Davis Hanson discusses first the argument of Obama and his supporters that any and all opposition to Obama is necessarily racist -- which is not merely a false argument, but one also nakedly self-serving and exceedingly irresponsible, as it denies the legitimacy of peaceful political opposition and inflames race hatreds. This we already know. But he also makes the more interesting point that Obama came to office with considerable white support, and that Obama's bungling is now causing him to lose that support. Furthermore, he points out that white liberals are now turning on the President:
... In fact, some of the most savage takedowns of Barack Obama have started to appear on the pages of the New York Times and the Huffington Post, where he is alleged to be an incompetent and weak purveyor of liberal values. It is almost as if some of these progressives relish critiquing Obama, in assurance that their liberal bona fides guarantees that no one will charge them with racism.
Here Obama is paying for his use of race and racism to attain the Presidency. He ran as "The Acceptable [to white liberals] Black Man," but in doing so he accepted the right of the white liberals to define what conduct on his part would be "acceptable." What's more, because he also ran as The Obamessiah, he also set up impossible expectations for his performance. These poses helped him get elected, but not for free: he is paying the price now for his 2008 popularity. No doubt, being the most intelligent President in our nation's whole history, this isn't coming to him as a complete surprise?
Indeed, there is something curious in the liberal argument that Obama, once deified as the ideal megaphone for progressive agendas, is now to be faulted for the current unpopularity of liberalism, given that he remains a far more effective advocate than Jimmy Carter and a far more doctrinaire leftist than Bill Clinton. It is almost as if liberal scapegoating of Obama is an attempt to shift responsibility for progressive failure from the message onto the hapless messenger ...
Precisely. And Obama is far from an innocent victim of this phenomenon. He indirectly caused it. You see, he got elected by making policy promises he should have known he could not keep, or should have known would cause severe damage to his faction if he tried to keep them. In some cases the promises contradicted other promises; in other cases (most notably "immediate withdrawal" from Iraq) they would have fatally-damaged his Presidency had he tried to keep them; in some cases ("the seas stopped rising") they were utterly beyond the power of any President to accomplish.
What we are seeing now is a growing resentment, building toward fury, on the Left that Obama did not keep those promises, and it is the fury of those who are becoming aware that they were conned. In most cases, the Leftists do not realize that the promises were impossible to fulfill, but they are aware that Obama made them with no intention of attempting their fulfillment. And they are getting mad at him.
it's fun to watch! :)
... In fact, some of the most savage takedowns of Barack Obama have started to appear on the pages of the New York Times and the Huffington Post, where he is alleged to be an incompetent and weak purveyor of liberal values. It is almost as if some of these progressives relish critiquing Obama, in assurance that their liberal bona fides guarantees that no one will charge them with racism.
Here Obama is paying for his use of race and racism to attain the Presidency. He ran as "The Acceptable [to white liberals] Black Man," but in doing so he accepted the right of the white liberals to define what conduct on his part would be "acceptable." What's more, because he also ran as The Obamessiah, he also set up impossible expectations for his performance. These poses helped him get elected, but not for free: he is paying the price now for his 2008 popularity. No doubt, being the most intelligent President in our nation's whole history, this isn't coming to him as a complete surprise?
Indeed, there is something curious in the liberal argument that Obama, once deified as the ideal megaphone for progressive agendas, is now to be faulted for the current unpopularity of liberalism, given that he remains a far more effective advocate than Jimmy Carter and a far more doctrinaire leftist than Bill Clinton. It is almost as if liberal scapegoating of Obama is an attempt to shift responsibility for progressive failure from the message onto the hapless messenger ...
Precisely. And Obama is far from an innocent victim of this phenomenon. He indirectly caused it. You see, he got elected by making policy promises he should have known he could not keep, or should have known would cause severe damage to his faction if he tried to keep them. In some cases the promises contradicted other promises; in other cases (most notably "immediate withdrawal" from Iraq) they would have fatally-damaged his Presidency had he tried to keep them; in some cases ("the seas stopped rising") they were utterly beyond the power of any President to accomplish.
What we are seeing now is a growing resentment, building toward fury, on the Left that Obama did not keep those promises, and it is the fury of those who are becoming aware that they were conned. In most cases, the Leftists do not realize that the promises were impossible to fulfill, but they are aware that Obama made them with no intention of attempting their fulfillment. And they are getting mad at him.
it's fun to watch! :)