Last night, Barack Obama spoke at a $30,000 per plate DNC fundraising event at the "home of Richard and Ellen Richman, who live in the exclusive Conyers Farm development in Greenwich [Connecticut]'s famed 'back country' neighborhood," and said the following about liberal critics of his presidency:
Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get -- to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particular derivatives rule, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven't yet brought about world peace and -- (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.) We have had the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation.
So, just as Robert Gibbs before him explained (albeit more harshly), if you're one of those people dissatisfied with large parts of the Obama presidency, that's only because you have something wrong with the way you think (you need drug testing/you "congenitally see the glass as half empty"), and because you are saddled with extremely unrealistic, child-like expectations (you're angry that the Pentagon hasn't closed yet/bitter that Obama "hasn't yet brought about world peace: 'I thought that was going to happen quicker' (Laughter.)"). In other words, you're just a petulant, unreasonable, unrealistic, fringe child who doesn't appreciate the greatness and generosity he's given you (h/t Jane Hamsher). Contrary to what many of you thought, it's these flaws within yourself that cause you to be dissatisfied with the administration, not because of any of this:
It's true that there are good things Obama has done: as but one example, both Elizabeth Warren and Simon Johnson believe that Warren's appointment today will empower her to help police Wall Street's abusive consumer practices in meaningful ways. But there have been many, many awful things -- not things which he has failed yet to do (i.e., "quickly enough"), but multiple policies he's affirmatively adopted, including many which directly violate his campaign pledges and ones which Democrats spent years during the Bush presidency vehemently condemning. Sitting at a $30,000 per plate fundraising dinner and mocking liberal critics as irrational ingrates while wealthy Party donors laugh probably does wonders for bruised presidential egos, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly effective way to motivate those who are so unmotivated. Then again, Barack Obama isn't actually up for election in November, so perhaps the former goal is more important to him than the latter. It certainly seems that way from these comments.
Deriding the Left, of course, is a time-honored, trite way for establishment politicians like Obama to make trite establishment journalists like Stromberg gush with affection. It does not, however, strike me as a very effective campaign strategy when virtually every polling expert is warning that the Democrats' greatest danger is pervasive dissatisfaction and even anger in their "base." They've been using this "strategy" for awhile now, and it doesn't seem to be working out very well. But at least The Washington Post's Stephen Stromberg is amused and "proud" of the President for following in the brave footsteps of Robert Gibbs and others by standing up to the wretched, fringe, simultaneously omnipotent and irrelevant, petulant left.
Read more at www.salon.com
No comments:
Post a Comment