Whether you agree with them or not, Obama has apparently pissed off the left.

[branders seine]

We know the republicans are sick, insane fuckwads and deserve plenty of blame and eternal damnation. But Obama has chosen to act in some cases and chosen to remain univolved in others. HE has emerged as one of the targets of pretty intense anger.

Why do you think it has come to this?

[DailyGrind51]

1. He needed to be more "coach" and less "professor".

[branders seine]

9. he definitely would have kicked ass and taken names

if he'd meant business, wouldn't he?


but he didn't.

[snagglepuss]

16. +1

[readmoreoften]

22. +2

[sendero]

29. It is sad to realize..

... that in terms of leadership, not figuring out what we should do but in getting congress to do it, Bush, the moron dictatortot, makes Obama look like a total chump.

Flowery rhetoric is nice but sometimes it has to become belligerent.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. I don't think anyone can really clean up the current mess.

The rot is too deep. It will have to all collapse in on itself and something functional will emerge.

Pessimistic, I know.

[sendero]

28. I agree with you....

.... this is unsustainable but it hasn't quite yet gotten bad enough for enough Americans to rise up and say "enough".

A few more years at most IMHO.

[NJmaverick]

3. I am from the left but I am not angry

then again I temper my ideological views with a healthy does of pragmatism.

[laughingliberal]

5. Pragmatism and Wholesale Capitulation are not synonymous. nt

[NJmaverick]

6. that's correct

[Fumesucker]

4. Obama's getting exactly what he wanted..

Look at the way Joementum has been treated by the WH..

[branders seine]

8. I agree with Thom Hartmann on that point.

The Senate plan is what Obama wanted all along. It is basically the "plan" he and the insurance executives hatched at their "secret" meetings last Winter.

[AndrewP]

20. +1

[mike_c]

7. Obama is shaping up as a mix of hapless and misdirected....

I think the truth is part haplessness and inexperience, and partly that his objectives really are not in line with the liberal ideals he gives lip service in exchange for votes. He'd be the consummate politician-- not necessarily a compliment-- except that he's not too consummate yet.

[branders seine]

10. His "machine" seems to need a Detroit retrofitting.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Other: Good intentions but marriage to status quo and corporate interests

makes all efforts an ugly hodgepodge of a mess that is gamed by the gamers with ease.

[timeforpeace]

12. If the choice is between incompetent and evil the former is obviously preferable.

[optimator]

13. I no longer believe he had good intentions

there is just too much evidence that can no longer be ignored.

[WT Fuheck]

31. Truth is Obama loves him some corporate fat cats

Loves 'em good! Gives 'em some sugar.

[Peregrine Took]

14. Obama is, was, and always will be a DLC'r yet most libs thought he was

one of them. I wonder why??? Did he deliberately misrepresent himself to the base to get elected?

[branders seine]

36. Some say he lied.

His supporters say he merely used weasely, tricky words, carefully chosen to thwart us liberals.

[TheMadMonk]

15. Missing one option that may well explain just about everything.

He was bought off with the lives of his daughters.

[Toasterlad]

19. Um...What?

I hope you're not seriously suggesting that the reason that Obama has consistently sold us down the river since his inauguration is that someone threatened to kill his daughters if he didn't?

From which moon of Saturn was that idea beamed to your brain?

[TheMadMonk]

21. He was almost certainly "gotten to" in some way or another.

How else explain a performance that is damned near a complete reversal of his track record prior to his running for President.

Alternately, his prior record was a cynical campaign to get himself into the position he holds now.

[Toasterlad]

25. I'd Say the Latter Is Almost Assuredly the Case

Obama is, first and foremost, a politician...which makes him a liar and a manipulator by default. The fact that he gives a good speech doesn't change that fact.

[TheMadMonk]

30. I don't know. He is not the man today that he was as a federal or state senator.

Nor as a community activist prior to that.

Virtually from the moment of his inauguration he turned from being an in your face go getter to a figurehead of a president.

Given wide open opportunities to destroy political enemies, and even the architects of disaster behind those enemies he steps aside; He stays 'above the fray'; He chooses not to give the enemy a target to unite against.

Ever since his inauguration, he has every reason under the sun to not be the man he was before. Why?


We know just how ruthless those who have come to run the show are. We know what they are capable of. We know what they have done. They no longer even try to hide their actions behind the flimsiest facade of respecatbility.


This is obviously pure speculation, but it's one that fits.

Knowing that they had no chance of getting another republican puppet elected, they needed the Democratic candidate that they could control.

Hillary on the face of it, would appear to be the candidate friendliest to their "cause", but Obama was the one with a handle that could be held in an unbreakable grip. And these people have demonstrated, time and time again that they have the necessary lack of conscience to grasp it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Nobody likes to be suckered and a lot of the left were with the "change" and "hope" slogans. .

Instead of "change" and "hope" they got politics-as-usual and now see just another politician screwing them.

[Toasterlad]

18. Obama Has Always Been a Corporate Whore.

I'm not sure I'd classify that as "evil", at least, not in a "Karl Rove/Dick Cheney" way. But he's not interested in serving the will of the people. He's interested in doing what's best for Barack Obama.

[Incitatus]

23. 2 & 5

[FLAprogressive]

24. i don't know anymore

[baldguy]

26. He was too naive in believing the Republicans were honorable advisories

Who have the best intentions, but the wrong methods.

In reality, Republicans can't be trusted; they want to destroy any and all political power in the hands of the middle class & the poor. Obama could privatize the entire federal govt, giving it to all the GOP's best friends - AND THEY WOULD STILL CALL HIM A SOCIALIST.

[branders seine]

32. has he been in a coma since Carter?

That's not "naive"; that's either mind-numbing ignorance or straight-up stupidity.

Please tell me the man we elected President in this time of crisis is either that stupid nor that ignorant.

[rucky]

27. He failed to manage expectations

then responded to the anger and dissatisfaction with arrogance instead of diplomacy.

[TexasObserver]

33. He had good intentions, but is just too naive and/or incompetent to fulfill them.

I think he means well. He wrongly thinks his constant bending to meet the GOP will is going to help him politically, make him appear reasonable. Instead, it just makes him look weak and used. He's not gaining any votes on the right of center and he is losing votes to the left.

[pissedoff01]

34. I like Obama - heck, I gave him my time and money - but he has lost my vote of confidence

Nice-sounding speeches don't mean shit

[ncteechur]

35. because most people include many on DU and other progressives have no fucking

idea how government really work and see things through rose-colored glasses. The naivety is not just with Obama but plenty of others, too.