I somewhat disagree. I certainly saw him to the left of Clinton. Of course my litmus test was more on executive authority, civil liberties and torture (all of which done a full 180 on from the campaign trail).

That said, I was VERY attuned to HCR as my secondary concern. In regards to that, what attracted me to Obama's plan were three big aspects: national exchanges, a publicly administered risk pool, and (most important) the promise that we'd make sure the new system worked before we discussed mandating that people participate. I don't know how to characterize that in terms of "left" vs. "right" ... I really don't, it doesn't seem the sort of issue that lends itself to that kind of compartmentalizing. What it is, however, is rather precise.

I'd be more likely to agree with your characterization if what had happened is that his progressive supporters had made the point of struggle over Single Payer - which Obama never promised and they STRONGLY support. But they didn't. There was no "wink-wink". He said "Let's meet half way at the public option". They said "OK, we'll compromise". Then he said "HaHA! Fuck you - you damn retards." I was always in the camp of being an independent who actually liked Obama's plan best. I wanted to see it enacted, so I was pretty damn angry when the people who gave up their preference in good faith and joined what I see as the genuine centrist position - the "progressives" - were the ones getting pissed on and we all ended up being screwed. Everyone. Not some "professional left". Everyone.

Maybe from the perspective of a Democratic insider since before 2004 it may look different - but come late 2007, 2008 Obama was talking about how the GOP couldn't be trusted to do shit and that he had THE plans to get us out of the ditch. Mr. Post-partisan didn't really have a whole hell of a lot to do with his spiel. He had that little rant based on the "We may not agree on [x-social-wedge] but we can certainly agree [lesser sub-issue-of-X-that-is-obvious]" riff. But it was never a part of his platform that the specific policies he wanted to advance were less important than making republicans feel good.

Just my recollections. As far as this independent is concerned, your clock starts ticking when you say "I'm running for president and this is what I plan to do if I win." I don't give a damn what he was stroking himself with in 2004.  If you really always thought the guy was a liar, well, I wouldn't have listened to you anyhow .... honestly. But I sure thought he was sincere.

For what it's worth, I think it was a great comment, and pretty much the best description of how Obama approaches the presidency. 

The one dynamic that doesn't seem to get discussed to much is that Will of the People gets itself expressed a lot of times through the Senators and Representatives.  Much of the time, their concern is not about where the nation as a whole is, but how will it play with their constituents.  To the extent that they look beyond their own constituents is when as a party they are looking at the battleground states.  So for someone like Senator Nelson, you can show him all the polls about how the country as a whole wants a public option, but since the Will of Nebraska wasn't aligned with that, he could care less what your national polls say. 

If Obama has a vision, a core value, beyond those that underpin his Centrist leanings, it is to seek some kind of consensus as a country that is just left of Reagan.  In other words, he is seeking to shift the mantra from "the lesser the government the better the government" to "it is not about big government or small government, but the right size of government."  The economic mess and the efforts to deal with it has muddled his hopes to be  a "tranformational" president in this regard.  The Republicans ability to stand firm in opposition (with no blow back from their constituents) and the continued economic misery has only polarized the country all the more, further moving into the bigger government and smaller government camps.   

So one can fault Obama for not going out there and trying to more agressively change the minds of people in Nebraska.  Or one can see that in the here and now it was about finding some consensus between Nebraska's will and Vermont's will, so to say.  And that given the current media, the ability of any president to successfully alter the will of the people is very minor.  Which is different than campaign speaking, which is more about making people their will and wishes will be reflected in the future.  As successful as Obama was during his 2008 campaign, I don't think there was very many people who changed how they viewed any issue, whether it economic policies, abortion, immigration, or whatnot.

As long as there are the Nebraskas out there in the numbers that are through the various states in the Senate, and all those legislative districts in the House, who have bought into the memes of the conservative for so long, getting a Centrist who does use on a number of occassions liberal frames on the issue to be successful is a step in the right direction of being able to get a liberal president who will be able to be successful.  It was this liberal framing, I believe, that truly scared those on the establishment right.  If the country became better in the first two years of Obama's administration, even though he approached it from center-right methodology, it would have been seen as a victory for a more liberal approach to governing.  It would have made more liberal policies, or policies that were actually liberal, more likely to succeed.  It may have begun to actually undo the narrative set in place during the Reagan era that holds so much sway today.

The hope now is that the liberal/progressives can start to turn the battle on the narrative.  Obama was never going to be the leader on that front.  What the liberals/progressives can do is make it appear on the ground, in states and legislative districts across the country, that the safe place to go is the center.  After the 2010 elections, that is even a more tall order than it was back in 2008.

I don't think it was such an unpopular comment or thought, really.  You said you didn't want to intellectualize about the passive/active stuff, but your thinking here, IMO, was an intellectualization superimposed on observations in some mental framework that seems new and different for you; sort of a departure from your past comments.  I just think that some who leapt aboard early started thinking of their observations on issues they watched closely, and measured your take against their previous understandings and conclusions about the guy. 

And for a lot of us, I think, it was an emotiuonal reaction that kept us looking and noticing and digging into the process AND the policies, and how ethically bereft he seemed compared to the good that the money he and his team endorsed spending and, in fact, did spend (OUR money, actually) to almost force-feed Wall Street and Big Corps instead of taking an honest look at what suffering people needed.  Not handouts, but some fucking economic justice that would save lives, foreclosures, keep kids fed, seniors affording their medicines, intead of being punished by Wall Street excesses caused by the their insane quest for money.

He dithered on plenty of things, this Prez, and often came to the least practical, least healthy, long-term sustainable conclusions possible, for the economy and people's lives and jobs.  The man knew it ws a fool's errand, for instance, to partner with Karzai in order to establish a central gummint there; he made the decision to 'surge', not after studying and consulting, but weighing the political optics of withdrawl, to which would have been, and continues to be, the only sane next step. 

Ah, well; what I mean is that we think it through AND feel it through, and that may be part of why we question your take.  That's all.  You can;t expect to score a home run every time, Pug.  And you'll likely find some extra applause; I think I may have seen a coule comin' in as I hit the Reply button.  ;o)

It means you leave it all up to The Ben Ber-nank, who then begs you for stimulus for jobs and blames the Chinese; then you get jiggy about a new NAFTA-ish free trade agreement with Korea.  You signal you're willing to deal on tax cuts for the welathy, then invite your political opponents to meet for dinner; when they postpone dinner for two weeks, when they show up you signal your increased willingness to cut a deal.  You probably make the deal, and hope they'll honor it, and you.  But no.  (And you know the rest of that one...)

Then you fight the House on Middle Class tax cuts, and give cover to any Senators, especially Dems, who then don't vote to extend cuts for under-a-millionaires.   You don't threaten a veto over tax cuts for the wealthy, instead you stand tall for A Deal: tie the millionaire extensions to some enemployment bennies, and maybe even a vote on the START II treaty.  Meanwhile, you whinge, "After all, I had to make a deal.  Republicans are people, too."

Sorry; I just listend to The Ben Bernank on 60 Minutes.  The interviewer said that some people think tax cuts for the wealthy might add to the deficit.  Brilliant!  But Poor Ben is freaking out.  Thinks it might take four or five years at 2% growth to reach 5% unemployment.  Wonder who he's listening to?

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/12/bernake-is-nervous.html

(Dude shoulda asked for a glass of water...)

I always appreciate "When Harry Met Sally" references, as that is one of my very favorite movies.  And not just for the precious and perhaps immortal "I'll have what she's having" deli scene, which I think really has to make it into the time capsule.  Referencing that movie may be the best way to get me into a thread these days (although leading a comment with the words "Obama's first fireside chat scheduled..." might also work.  :<)).  Like if you want to make sure Bruce is alive and well, bashing Israel is probably the best bet to find out quickly, or if you want to make sure artappraiser is ok, just write that the liberal blogosphere represents the pinnacle of human accomplishment and genius, or that self-identified or art-identified or GOP-identified "liberals" are actually sometimes right, even though David Dinkins was a(n) (inept) liberal.  :<)

Now should be about the time for We Are Stardust to chime in and say he found nothing funny whatsoever about that movie.  :<)  Come on, star...