Hope dashed

Promises, promises.  The windfall profits tax, repeal of the Bush tax cuts, abandonment of Iraq...  Those promises to the left wing base are what won Barack Obama his party's nomination, but what's good for the Democratic primary will never do in the general election.  Lefties, once enthralled by Barack's soaring demagoguery, are beginning to get a little nervous.

Obama drew rousing applause at campaign events when he vowed to tax the windfall profits of oil companies. As president-elect, Obama says he won’t enact the tax.

Obama’s pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts and redistribute that money to the middle class made him a hero among Democrats who said the cuts favored the wealthy. But now he’s struck a more cautious stance on rolling back tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year, signaling he’ll merely let them expire as scheduled at the end of 2010.

Obama’s post-election rhetoric on Iraq and choices for national security team have some liberal Democrats even more perplexed. As a candidate, Obama defined and separated himself from his challengers by highlighting his opposition to the war in Iraq from the start. He promised to begin to end the war on his first day in office.

Now Obama’s says that on his first day in office he will begin to “design a plan for a responsible drawdown,” as he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Obama has also filled his national security positions with supporters of the Iraq war: Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted to authorize force in Iraq, as his secretary of state; and President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, continuing in the same role.

The central premise of the left’s criticism is direct – don’t bite the hand that feeds, Mr. President-elect. The Internet that helped him so much during the election is lighting up with irritation and critiques.

Leftist solidarity with The One is beginning to show cracks.  Some are willing to give him a little time.  After all, he's not even the president yet.  But the choices he made for his national security team seem about to dash hard core hopes.  

Lefties had kept faith, even as the primary campaign gave way to the general election and Obama's various positions drifted predictably toward the center.  It was just campaign talk.  Obama couldn't really mean that nonsense he was babbling about Iraq and conditions on the ground.  That was Bush talk.  Barack had to say those things to convince those right wing rubes it was safe to vote for him.  Sophisticated lefties were convinced that they understood the game plan.

Meanwhile, Obama has come face to face with reality.  A U.S. defeat in Iraq at the hands of al Qaeda, the defeat that Democratic party leaders have predicted and worked towards for so long, has become the distant unreachable star. 

On the left, though, they are determined to soldier on.  Their candidate of hope, who wooed them with promises that he would immediately abandon Iraq, has predictably veered to the center, backing away from his earlier stance.  In his current stance he says we must withdraw carefully.  On the left they know he has to say this, but their uncertainty remains.  Do they have the audacity to hope he's lying?

But then Robert Gates was asked to stay on as Secretary of Defense.  Doubt became certainty.  Obama actually meant what he was saying to the rubes. 

Perhaps they give up hope too soon, the left.  Patience should be the order of the day.  As we've seen, Obama's positions evolve.  He refines them.  Pick an issue.  At one time or another he's been on both sides of it.  What is true one day is may not be so the next.  And there's the beauty of it.  Obama is always telling the truth -- half the time.  Now suddenly it's the other half that is giving the left fits.  Lying half the time, used to be OK.  But on the left it is slowly sinking in.  They can't be sure who he is lying to anymore.

Comments

[jr]

Reality can be a bitter pill indeed.

[Tom Bowler]

Indeed.