Another apologist explains why you shouldn't judge Obama "so early" in his administration.
If Obama serves two terms, we are a mere 8% of the way into his tenure. That strikes me as a little early for people to be throwing in the towel. So the interesting question of the near future will be: can the Obama movement go from the euphoric phase, in which everything seemed possible, into a more realist phase in which people come to terms with the very difficult and far less exhilarating tasks associated with governing, and the often dissatisfying victories that result from the legislative process?Putting aside the fact that if we ignore our growing concerns about President Obama, he may not have a second term, we're back to that definition of insanity again. The concerns about Obama began almost two years ago for the gay community, when the McClurkin incident happened, and a good year ago (at least) for everyone else. This is not some "new" thing we're all noticing. It's a very old thing that has established a very disturbing, repeating, pattern of behavior. To suggest we ignore it, and perhaps this time it will go away, is both extremely naive and politically dangerous.
Now hang on to your seats for the next paragraph:
It's been a rocky month or six weeks, no denying it. The White House has made its share of errors. At the same time, I don't think anyone could have anticipated the rightwing response to the healthcare proposals. Forceful opposition and lies here and there, sure. But death panels and armed citizens coming to presidential rallies and comparisons to Hitler and polls showing that more than half of Republicans aren't convinced Obama is even an American citizen? No one saw this coming.With all due respect, you're an idiot.
No one expected the Republicans to play dirty? No one expected them to put forth outlandish lies? No one expected them to demonize Obama and basically threaten his life, like they did for two years during the race for the presidential election? In what possible universe did you not expect the Republicans to act like they've been acting for the past twenty years, let alone the past two?
So now, liberals have to fight hard for something they're not terribly excited about. A health bill will likely have a very weak public option or it won't have one at all. But liberals will have to battle for that bill as if it's life and death (which in fact it will be for thousands of Americans), because its defeat would constitute a historic victory for the birthers and the gun-toters and the Hitler analogists.So we should fight for a bad health care reform bill, and fight for every other "broken promise proposal" Obama puts forth on gay rights and every other issue he either has or will cave on, lest the bad guys win? The bad guys are winning, that's kind of the point.
The birthers and the teabaggers went nuts, the Dems and the White House got scared, and they caved. Well, actually, in all fairness, the White House caved early on. It's what they do, in the name of "bipartisanship."
The danger isn't that the birthers and teabaggers may win. They've already won. And you want us to codify their victory, and reinforce to the president that his actions to date have been acceptable - so we can have three more years of the same up until the Republicans win back the White House and both houses of Congress? I don't think so.
