Like many liberals, I am disappointed that Barack Obama isn’t more, well, liberal.
Unlike many liberals, I’m not in the least surprised he’s not.
The debt ceiling crisis offers the perfect place to examine this. It’s disappointing, but perfectly believable, that the showdown has been played almost entirely in Republican territory — the land where virtually all programs, except those birthed in the Pentagon, should be cut and no taxes, of any kind, should be raised.
This is where we are. This is where the battles are fought. All I can say is duck and cover.
As we headed toward the final act, what did Obama want out of this debate? After losing his shot at a grand bargain, what he mostly wanted was for the issue to go away, hopefully without the country defaulting in the meantime.
And so, we’ve had compromise after compromise, leaving the debate, whoever wins, with all cuts and no revenues — exactly what liberals had feared. Compromise is not how you win favor with the purists in your party (see: Boehner, John, as reference point).
The compromises show Obama moving to the center and Democrats, believing enough Republicans were actually ready to send the country over a Thelma and Louise cliff, reluctantly trailing after him.
So it’s not surprising to see liberal dissatisfaction not only with Republicans, but also with Obama, who, after all, is the president who allowed the debate to get this far — and who got them to go with him.
Meanwhile, nobody seems to be proposing anything that actually deals with our greatest problem — too many people without jobs.
Does anyone else see a disconnect here?
In the pundit world, of course, we see other things. It’s the job. We see Boehner’s freshman problem and we see Obama’s parallel liberal problem, even if they’re not remotely parallel.
Still, a headline on a political blog on the Los Angeles Times website says, “New polls confirm Obama’s Democratic base crumbles.”
The article cites several polls showing everyone — left, right and center — unhappy with Obama’s record on job creation and then cites Bernie Sanders’ contention that what Obama needs is a primary opponent from the left.
Sanders is an unabashed lefty — the Vermont senator even calls himself a socialist — and it’s fair to say that though he’s lovable, in a favorite old uncle kind of way, he’s not exactly at the center of American political thought.
In any case, what seems to be missing from the discussion here is the long history of liberal dissatisfaction with Democratic presidents.
Bill Clinton, the great triangulator, was, of course, a great disappointment to liberals, particularly for caving in on welfare reform and for hiring Dick Morris and all his toes.
Jimmy Carter was so disappointing to liberals that Ted Kennedy ran against him in a primary.
Lyndon Johnson, who passed more liberal legislation than any president other than FDR, was chased from office because of Vietnam.
When John Kennedy was nominated, the liberal wing of the party tried to get two-time-loser Adlai Stevenson nominated, presumably so he could lose for a third time.
Maybe you can spot a trend here. It’s hard for liberals to understand when Tea Partyers call Obama a Marxist — Paul Krugman, after all, just called him a moderate conservative — just as it’s hard for Tea Partyers to understand why liberals say John McCain is a conservative.
I’d call Obama a mainstream liberal, whose passion is as a problem-solving technocrat. You’d think the great orator would be able to produce a Great Society-style narrative to his presidency. The big weakness in his presidency is that he doesn’t have one. Instead, he’s got a let’s-pass-health-care-but-compromise-on- Bush-tax-cuts, eventually-end-don’t-ask-don’t- tell-but-not-too-soon, don’t-prosecute-any- Wall-Streeters-because-it-wouldn’t-be-productive narrative.
What liberals object to is the fact that Obama has abandoned the argument that the debt problem is a long-term issue that is complicated to resolve in such a fragile economy. What they want Obama to say is we’re having the wrong fight at the wrong time. Let’s get people back to work. Let’s get entitlements fairly reformed. Let’s get the economy producing more revenue. This would be Obama’s position, if he were still a senator.
But it isn’t really Obama’s positions that get liberals so riled up. It’s the choice issue.
It’s that when they look at the Republican presidential field, they see Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry saying there’s little to fear from default. They see Mitt Romney trying to avoid saying anything at all. They see 2012 and shudder.
And so liberals know, in that way you know things you don’t really want to know, that it’s one thing to complain about Obama, but it’s another to find anyplace else to go.
E-mail Mike Littwin at mlittwin@denverpost.com.
