From TPM Reader JE …
Regarding the letter from MG – I would just like to rant for a minute or two about Obama’s 08 supporters who now don’t like him. Although I couldn’t tell from the tone of his letter if he necessarily was one of those – sounds like he might be a disgruntled Hillary supporter who will take any excuse to complain about Obama. My mom is one of those and I’ve been trying to turn her around.
In any case back to the disgruntled Obama people.
I also was a Hillary supporter in 08 and never managed to garner much enthusiasm for Obama during the remainder of the campaign. I had low expectations for him coming into office – my opinion of him back then was somewhat similar to what MG expressed.
However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the job he’s done, over and over. One of the reasons I supported Hillary had been that we couldn’t afford another newbie president making rookie mistakes that all of us would be paying for years later. Bill Clinton did some of those in his first term, and I thought Hillary was a better choice having lived through it with her husband. But I think Obama has done an outstanding job in not making those kinds of mistakes, and doing so has taken a lot of patience, discipline, foresight, and the balls to take risks. The raid on Bin Laden being a prime example.
Another prime example is the repeal of DADT. It just blew my mind how so many of Obama’s most strident supporters were freaking out over how two years into his presidency he still hadn’t got rid of DADT. It’s like they wanted him to just pound his fist and sign an executive order to end enforcement of the law. These are the same dummies who blamed Bill Clinton for DADT in the first place. Clinton tried, failed, was accused of “throwing gays under the bus,” and now they wanted Obama to take the same tack. Sometimes I just want to slap these people.
And speaking of people who need to be slapped – all those who told me I should support Obama instead of Hillary because she was “just so polarizing” and would encounter so many obstacles in congress from the Clinton hate,* and Obama being a likeable fresh new face, he’d get off on the right foot with congress and everything would go so much smoother. How’s that going? And these are the same dummies who were furious at Obama for not pushing through single payer in healthcare reform. Hey where’s the Obama I voted for? Whaaaa!
*Of course had Hillary won, the first part of that statement would be truer than ever.
About the debate performance – yes Obama blew it, it was bad, and I regret that he did it. Of all the nights to be “off”, that was not the one. He made the task ahead more difficult for himself. However, based on his capabilities we’ve seen from his performance in office, I expect that he is going to get this straightened out. There won’t be a knockout punch. He’ll get to 270.
There are people on my side of the aisle who live in a fantasy world almost as much as some of the right wing crazies. They build up expectations for Obama that are based not on the real him, but on what they want from him, then when they don’t get instant gratification, they project all their anger on him and blame him rather than face living in the real world. Thankfully Obama is living in the real world.
