The new Obama fault line on the left: ‘He’s a closet Republican’ vs. ‘He’s an inept Dem’
....Peter Daou (former Consultant to Hillary Clinton's Campaign for Presidency)
Paul Krugman is getting lots of attention for a scathing piece that concludes:
Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.
Interestingly, Krugman is on the forgiving side of a new divide on the left over President Obama.Here’s what I mean: For some time, the basic division over Obama on the opinion-making left was between those who argued that he had accomplished much considering the obstacles and those who believed he was selling out progressive principles out of a misguided desire for bipartisanship.
Today, the predominant rift appears to be between those who believe he is selling out progressive principles out of a misguided desire for bipartisanship and those who say that he is actually getting the policies he wants, i.e. that he is perfectly comfortable ditching progressive principles because he doesn’t believe in them.Proponents of the latter view have new ammunition with a story making the rounds about Obama’s private self-assessment:
Privately, Mr. Obama has described himself, at times, as essentially a Blue Dog Democrat, referring to the shrinking caucus of fiscally conservative members of the party.
Whichever position wins out, one thing is for certain: Obama has lost the left’s opinion-making machinery. Of course, some would say that’s exactly what he wants.http://peterdaou.com/2010/12/the-new-obama-fault-line-on-the-left/