My -- and Obama's? -- Ur-moment of disaffection

"I think we are approaching a breaking point" with President Obama, said NY's Congressman Jerry Nadler to Dana Milbank, whose column this morning surveys "the feeling of betrayal" by Capitol Hill's assorted progressive Nadlers to the singularly pragmatic Obama.

Almost instantly we're thrust by Milbank into the smoldering fires of progressive discontent: They seethe over Obama's "Extending Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans" (which for the unemployed paid the rent and kept food on the table); over Obama's "Keeping the Guantanamo Bay prison open" (which Congress, not Obama, has done); over Obama's "Declining to support a larger economic stimulus, or a second one" (the first of which was never politically possible, the second of which is a political fantasy); over Obama's "Foot-dragging on climate change" (which in a weak economy is an unavoidable corollary); over Obama's "Resisting calls to support gay marriage" (from progs, perhaps the most insulting "Yeah, but what have you done for us lately" ever); over Obama's "Surging troops into Afghanistan and removing them too slowly" (the build-up of which was a campaign pledge and it has, after all, had its geopolitical successes, while the pace of any withdrawal is always "too slow" for war opponents); over Obama's "Offering up too many budget cuts in negotiations" (I assume they mean those reportedly enormous cuts that in reality turned out to be Boehner-humiliating peanuts?); and over Obama's "Hesitating to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the new financial regulatory agency" (that would be the Elizabeth Warren who at Obama's request organized the agency and whose nomination can't survive a filibuster and whose recess appointment would ignite a political [and legal] explosion within the already raging debt-ceiling war).

From that list I omitted another of Milbank's itemized Obamian "transgressions," for it deserves a separate, special and honored mention; in addition, it was the issue whose moment represented my -- and for all I know Obama's -- "breaking point" with progressives: "Surrendering on the public option."

I won't bore you or myself into a catatonic seizure with a painfully extended revisit to, or delineated history of, that dreadful and needlessly protracted affair. Let's just recall that Obama's "surrender" was as roughly frivolous and carefree -- as progressives have labored to characterize it -- as Field Marshal Paulus' at Stalingrad. For days, weeks, months the self-destructive thing dragged out at demagogically progressive pols' insistence; but hey, they were from safe districts or states, pandering to their base, so what did they care that the public option simply, irrefutably did not have the votes to pass the Senate?

Meanwhile, about the jobs crisis -- the electorate's #1 worry -- those Democratic majorities sat idle, which radiated a public appearance of Democratic indifference, which in turn opened a massive breach into which Tea Party fanatics could charge. All the polling and every acute political instinct dictated that Congressional Dems should expeditiously conclude the best healthcare deal they could get (which, finally, they did) and then for Christ's sake move on to jobs creation -- or at least the bloody appearance thereof.

Obama understood almost from the get-go that there'd be no public option in the deal, and centrist Democrats and certainly the party's demagogic progressives knew there'd be no public option in the deal, and for damn sure the Republicans knew it; I knew it, the press knew it, insincere progressive bloggers knew it, mental patients and schoolchildren and my border collie Jack knew it. Still, the public-option platoon self-righteously fought on, widening John Boehner's path to the speakership and the quite possibly clinically sociopathic Eric Cantor's to the majority leadership.

That -- the public-option debacle -- was my Ur-moment of profound disaffection, the flashing genesis, the spark of a blinding epiphany and incontrovertible enlightenment: contemporary progressives, by and large, are imbeciles. I suspect that Obama, at about that time, also sensed some recalculating ground shifting beneath him.

I persist, as does Obama, in a philosophical fidelity to progressive goals. But, good God, those progressives themselves, what an embarrassing, counterproductive, pathologically hypervirtuous bunch of infantile nincompoops they can be.

Comments

[Ansel M.]

"... those progressives themselves, what an embarrassing, counterproductive, pathologically hypervirtuous bunch of infantile nincompoops they can be ..."

Amen, Brother Carpenter! Between them and the extremist "neoconservatives" in Congress, one gets the feeling some days that things really are spinning out of control. Thank goodness for the reassurance provided by your Commentary because it helps me maintain a rational perspective!

[Dorothy Rissman]

This is nothing more than grandstanding. All they are worried about is the 2012 election.

What really annoys me is that these same people were too cowardly to vote on the tax cuts before the 2010 elections. They did not have the spine to vote on Obama's budget. Look who takes the fall. It is Obama.

Indeed, they are nincompoops.

[Alli]

@Dorothy: the 2012 election where they will be riding in on Obama's coattails.

[Alli]

OMG! OMG! FANTASTIC POST!

[Marc McKenzie]

"But, good God, those progressives themselves, what an embarrassing, counterproductive, pathologically hypervirtuous bunch of infantile nincompoops they can be."

Well said.

The sad thing is, they seem to be content to stand aside while things go over the cliff, and be smug about it. The heavy lifting that is needed to get things done is never on their minds.

[Peter G]

I see why you have your own blog. This sort of Obamapology is never well received of your more progressive blogs where such factual reality-based analysis is considered either trolling or hippie punching. I have put forward precisely the same sort of arguments as these political situations have arisen only to be told that the absence of presidential dorsal rigidity and/or gonadal displays is why these results happen. Those responding individuals are the charitable ones. The more paranoid are certain that treason is involved. If I were to offer a criticism of this post it would be that you overlooked one of the favorite progressive laments and that is Obama saved Wall St with bailouts. The fact that the greatest and most important tranches of aid came from Bush or the the failure of the entire financial industry would have made the failure to raise the debt ceiling pale in comparison is irrelevant to the whine. And no matter how many times you point out the lunacy you'll find the exact same dreary drone on the very next lie.

[Jimiskin]

Thanks for once again elucidating the reality of the subject. And I'm sure you're right about Cantor being a sociopath, but then again it's hard to think of a Republican official who isn't.

[pamelabrown]

Absolutely stellar post, p.m. I only hope that this post is spread far and wide-especially to the so called progressives in congress.

I'm sick to wretching that these progressives, while avoiding responsibility/accountability, project their shortcomings (lack of cajones?) on the president: he's expected to all their jobs...and perfectly.

What is even sadder is that-ideologically-I'm mostly in agreement.

[eb]

Peter G, that is a brilliant point, and one that is lost on the dogmatic puritans who call themselves the 'base'.

[GT]

Fact: Obama never even bothered to fight for the Public Option, nor did he use the Bully Pulpit to put pressure on the Senate Republicans.

Democrats controlled the Senate, but they do not pass the Public Option. And yet circa 2001- 2002, a Democratic controlled Senate passes Bush's budget busting tax cuts and the Iraq war resolution.

Fact: Obama sells out to Big Pharma even after he criticized them during the campaign.

Obama is a Progressive and is committed to "progressive goals" in the same way that Hugh Hefner is committed to monogamy and chaste behavior.

But, hey, P.M. have it your way! Keep telling us how wonderful and courageous Obama is!

I am done with Obama and the wussy Democrats.

[nathkatun7]

Thank you p m Carpenter for this excellent post. The tragedy, of course, is that the "counterproductive, pathologically hypervirtuous bunch of infantile nincompoops" are constantly paraded by the media as spokesperson for the Democrats.

[janicket]

And GT lumbers in to repeat every wornout, threadbare talking point so masterfully refuted by PM in the very post GT responds to. Pitiful.

[eb]

GT how's about you go vote for someone else, we get it, you cannot stand the president.

[Bruce]

Well done GT! Each and every day let us know we have to have your personal approval to sit at your lunch table.

[Dorothy Rissman]

GTs comment certainly represents the voice of the frustrati, but I do not believe all of them will sit out the election. Many of those who decide to stay at home and not vote would never be happy about anything the president does. Truthfully, I suspect that no one will ever pass their purity test.

They are the same people who did not think Al Gore and John Kerry were progressive enough, and Bill Clinton did nothing but compromise.

[GT]

Every thing is lovely. Nothing to see here. Carry on!

[Dorothy Rissman]

pm, I just tried to send this to a friend, and it would not accept the word I was trying to copy. It also did not offer me another word to try. I am glad you are doing the email distribution.

[Marc McKenzie]

@Peter G...GT just proved your point: "And no matter how many times you point out the lunacy you'll find the exact same dreary drone on the very next lie."

[Dorothy Rissman]

pm is it possible that we could actually Reply to each other? I am a dork, but it would be nice to have that ability.

[Kerry Reid]

Bless you, sir. Perfectly stated. Unfortunately, the people who most need to hear this have already decided that pragmatic policy is a sin and that what they, as "progressives," most want is a righteousgasm of symbolic "justice" -- like letting healthcare reform go down for another 20 years because it doesn't include a weak-ass public option. They worship late-to-the-party "progressives" like Jane "I Heart Grover Norquist" Hamsher, John "I worked for GOP Senator and DOMA Supporter Ted Stevens" Avarosis, Ed "I wasn't a Democrat until 2000" and Markos "I was a Republican for a long time" Moulitsas.

As somebody who has identified as a Dem since before I could vote, who has never missed one single election (well, maybe one Dem primary in a Chicago mayoral race and really -- it was a foregone conclusion that somebody named "Daley" would win), and whose history of actual, boots-on-the-ground activism stretches back to 1978, when I was working for ERA Illinois as a 13-year-old, I resent like hell being told by these puling preening attention-hungry idiots who don't understand basic math or civics that THEY are the vanguard of the base.

[Kerry Reid]

"Ed" in my previous comment refers to Ed "I'm not gonna vote in the midterms because I'm butthurt" Schultz.

[Hackjob]

When the ACA turns out to be a trillion dollar gift to insurance companies that kills americans and renders health care lawmaking politically impossible, maybe PM will understand that the public option was the lynchpin of the scheme and when HE DID NOT HAVE THE VOTES for it, he did not have the votes for real healthcare reform.

What we have is shit, period, and no amount of Obama love is likely to change that.

[Kerry Reid]

Dear Aptly-Named Hackjob: Riddle me this -- if the ACA was, indeed, such a "trillion dollar gift to insurance companies," then why did they spend so much time and effort attempting to defeat it?

And you do realize that the original Social Security Act was also, by many measures, "shit," inasmuch as it excluded most people of color and women, right?

[Hackjob]

Riddle you that: the insurance companies were all for the ACA once Obama cut the deal with the hospitals and pharma. Once they killed the public option, they won and they knew it.

The ACA and Social Security, other than being US Laws, have nothing in common.