And I hope they wear it well :-)
Posted on 12/02/2008 12:07:26 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Why are liberals nervous about President-elect Barack Obama? If you read and listen to them (we at HUMAN EVENTS do so you don’t have to), you’d hear many an anguished whine.
Obama ran on a hard-left anti-war platform. He famously spoke to Joe the Plumber about his affinity for income redistribution and he proposed about $800 billion in new government spending including the Democrat platform proposal of universal healthcare. Add to this that many in his party want major reductions in the American military regardless of the fact that we are at war, and it’s not hard to see why Obama’s campaign appealed to every Moveon.org impulse throughout the country and the world.
But how do they like him now? His original promises of immediate withdrawal from Iraq morphed on the campaign trail into leaving 60,000 troops there until 2010. Then he augmented that somewhat so that 80,000 troops would remain until 2010 (and even signaled they may be there until 2012). And by the time he won the election, Obama was even less clear about when the troops would come home. He now says: “I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my national security apparatus, and we will start executing a plan that draws down our troops."
How do the young, fresh-faced college bloggers who voted for “change” feel about the fact that Obama’s cabinet has turned out to be a composite of has-beens and never-should-have-beens from the Clinton administration? He literally went backwards almost two decades to recruit cabinet members, and, as such, his cabinet suggests the promotion of entrenched interests instead of change.
Think about it; the generation of college kids who voted for Obama weren’t frightened away by his socialism because they don’t remember socialism. They don’t know the U.S.S.R. from Cheyenne, Wyo. They only knew that Obama’s words sounded good, thus his promise of “change” was followed by chants of “yes we can,” and, without having any real idea about what kind of change he intended, throngs of ignorant youngsters volunteered for his campaign and got the t-shirt.
Now that they realize they’ll be looking at Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for the foreseeable future, as well as Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton, some of these euphoric bloggers have become concerned, if not enraged. They’re beginning to realize the joke is on them, and they’re starting to sound off.
A disappointed Kevin Martin, of Peace Action, now fears that “the president-elect is ‘a fairly centrist guy’ who appears to be choosing from the [Democrat] foreign policy establishment -- “‘and nobody from outside it.’”
On michaelmoore.com, the Lefties have latched onto the fact that Obama is filling his cabinet with politicians who voted for the war in Iraq, and they are dismayed. One article on the site quotes the Institute for Public Accuracy’s Sam Husseini as saying, “It's astonishing that not one of the 23 senators or 133 House members who voted against the war is in the mix.” In the same article, Kelly Dougherty, of Iraq Veterans Against the War, is quoted as saying: “Obama ran his campaign around the idea the war was not legitimate, but it sends a very different message when you bring in people who supported the war from the beginning.”
On commondreams.org, a gathering place for liberals the world over, John Nichols has a piece posted wherein he complains that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, is not partisan enough. Nichols describes Emanuel as a man who has “worked very hard for a very long time -- first in the Clinton administration and then in Congress -- to change the [Democrat] Party into a more cautious, centrist and compromised institution,” and he is disgusted by it.
Like so many on the left, Nichols’ words betray his thirst for political blood. Neither he the loons on michaelmoore.com, nor the kooks on moveon.org want cautiousness or centrism: they want the hard left policies Obama ran on implemented now.
Obama has got to keep in mind the type of people to whom he promised the world during his campaign. They will not be satisfied with inaction but will hold him accountable for every promise that remains unfilled.
Thus Nichols, after openly espousing his disappointment in the selection of Emanuel for Chief of Staff, wrote: “But Emanuel is not going to be the president, Obama is. And if this administration adopts Emanuel's compromised positions, it will not be the fault of the chief of staff. It will be the fault of the president.”
Even as I type, Labor leaders are disgruntled over the fact that “Obama's team of Treasury secretary and four top economic advisers, introduced as the hands that will steer America's economy, had no particular ties to the labor movement.” According to Ben Smith of the Politico, Labor fears that Obama views the post of Secretary of Labor as having “second-tier status,” thus they are already reminding him that he might not have won the election without them.
And when incoming senior White House advisor David Axelrod appeared on Fox News Sunday, November 23 and hinted that the Bush tax cuts may not be repealed after all, the people who put Obama into office so they could get a handout understood that this meant there will be no money for Obama to hand out, and the would-be freeloaders grew anxious.
Writing in the Huffington Post, disgruntled Obama supporter David Sirota juxtaposed the President-elect’s campaign pledge to raise taxes on everyone making over $250,000 annually with last week’s seeming about-face, as broached by Axelrod, in an attempt to force Obama to return to his campaign promise to raise taxes. Sirota said he was “confused” over the fact that Obama’s “admirable declaration that campaign promises would be upheld” as recently as November 10 gave way to Obama’s seeming indifference to raising the money necessary for “priorities like energy investment, health care…energy stimulus…and…infrastructure spending.”
These people are going to knock on Obama’s door until he opens it and gives them everything he promised or moves out of the house. It’s as simple as that. (And he will, in the next two years at least, start giving them what they want.)
So we must remember that as stupid and shameful as his promises of government intervention, income redistribution, and the Europeanization of America sounded to those of us who are still proud, self reliant, Americans, the people who supported Obama are certain we’d be better off if we were Frenchified. Thus they not only supported the man who talked about taking our hard earned money and dispersing it among the lazy and the feeble, but they are angered that he has not moved to take our money quickly enough.
Fortunately for now, Obama’s inexperience has him frozen in place, and all his talk on the campaign trail has proven to be just that. But this will change soon enough, especially as those to whom he made promises continue to approach him with their hands out.
Until then, we conservatives can enjoy watching the Leftists go to war against their “leader.” And the Leftists, for their part, should be content in knowing something that is actually true for change: the idea that Barack Obama will govern from the center is a joke on all Americans.
PIE, I want more PIE......
....and pay my mortgage, and fill my gas tank!!
While you’re at it, Democrats, how about a hooker in every bedroom, we all want to live like Bill Clinton. /s
[Just SAY NO to Democrat pandering......]
I’m starting to think this is going to be flat out funny to watch “the One” plummet from that very very high pedestal he was placed on
They’ve been Frenched...
The problem is, the lefties weren't listening (as usual). 0bama actually ran as a conservative - he came out in favor of tax cuts (he invoked Reagan's name at one point), against gun control, in favor of "traditional" values ("pull up your pants, bro"), yada, yada, yada.
We all know, of course, that he's not. The libs were stupid enough to think that he was just telling us, the rubes that he was going to uphold traditional American values while winking over the rubes' heads that "we're really going to turn left once I'm in". 0bama may have just enough understanding of "Realpolitik" to avoid that, which will infuriate his base to no end.
C'est la vie. Sucks to be them.
“How do the young, fresh-faced college bloggers who voted for “change” feel about the fact that Obama’s cabinet has turned out to be a composite of has-beens and never-should-have-beens from the Clinton administration? He literally went backwards almost two decades to recruit cabinet members, and, as such, his cabinet suggests the promotion of entrenched interests instead of change. “
This is the best graf in the entire piece. I’d like to hear from some of those college students.
I truly believe that by 2012 he will have things so screwed up that he’ll get a worse butt whoopin’ than Reagan gave Carter in ‘80.
Palin / (And a Conservative Mexican) 2012
It’s kind of like what Arnie did for CA. not
Whether the Affirmative Action President is a liar or just constrained by reality, I'll be thrilled if he fails to follow through on the hard-left promise that his voters expected. I'd rather have a severe depression than imposed socialism.
What a surprise. Obama’s still voting present. The lefties should have checked his record instead of listening to his speeches.
We've already heard from one -- an old one who used to work at Ramparts in its seamy glory days.
David Horowitz. Remember what he said -- "It all comes together at the top," and then wonder no more about why the Bush 43 Administration never prosecuted Bill Clinton's crimes, or about why Slick and Poppy Bush started palling around as soon as Slick and Beast slipped out the door with all that White House silverware. Wonder no more.
I'll bet Slick even turns up to hobnob with the Bushes at the Bohemian Grove one of these days soon.
And I hope they wear it well :-)
I will be more interested to see what kind of bumper stickers get produced.
I would like one that says: “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for Zero”
Seriously, we've got a situation where before the election, these people practically deified Obama, and they pinned all their hopes and dreams upon him. Their disappointment will drive them nuts, and if you think that they're consumed by BDS, we haven't seen anything yet when they go from loving Obama with all their hearts and souls to the feeling of anger and hatred over the belief that they were lied to and have been double crossed.
Once Obama is sworn into office, he'll be the President of the United States, and unlike the leftists whos hatred of Bush is so great that they were willing for the USA to fail in order to try to discredit Bush, I'm not willing to do that. I will support the POTUS on things with which I agree (so far, I'm still waiting to find one, though his decision to continue the WOT in Iraq is hopeful), I will be a part of the "loyal opposition" to those programs he puts forth that I oppose. And the last thing that I would EVER want to see is the loss of a President (any POTUS that I can imagine) to an assassin.
Mark
Amen to that.
Besides, would you REALLY want to have Biden with his finger that close to "the button"....
I wouldn't trust him to walk my dogs....
He hasn’t even taken office yet, and already the bloom is off the rose. Well, you bought his line, morons; now you’re stuck with that worthless certificate of ownership to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Hey, one of his lines this am is that “It is a time for a new beginning” What the f is that??
“Eat your livers, you bastards!”
You’d like to hear from those college students but unfortunately, most of them can’t write.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.