Balloon Juice has a good posting today about the White House pushing back on republicans and Cheney.
They use quotes from another article by Greg Sargent and then they end with a nice summary.
The whole of the posting struck me as a good highlight of exactly what is going on with this president and the left and essentially what he's been facing all year.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/
Diaries have been popping up here alot recently from members and from other blogs slamming the president for not doing enough, not being progressive enough, not fighting hard enough for progressive issues and for not have progressive enough staff.
In facing the scathing name calling of Obamabot, many have been trying to explain the facts and reality to these progressives and yet nothing has changed.
Taking the blockquotes from Balloon Juice of Sargent's article, I am hoping people will understand why those like myself have been trying to fight back and stand up for the president over unfair hits:
The White House is pushing back hard on Joe Lieberman and select Republicans, who are seizing on the thwarted terror plot to renew calls for Guantanamo to be kept open, saying in no uncertain terms that the facility will still be closed because it remains a "national security imperative" to do so.
***
But a senior administration official emails that plans to close the facility haven’t changed — and that the administration is sticking to its scheme of releasing some detainees and trying or indefinitely holding others.
***
Again, what’s striking here is how alone the White House is in making this argument. Congressional Dems have balked at providing key funding necessary to facilitate the tranfser of some detainees to rural Illinois.
What’s more, with Republicans using the thwarted plot to amplify their critique of Obama’s broader counter-terrorism efforts, Dems are refusing to step forward and defend the administration’s general approach. Nor are they making the case that the official made above: That even with the thwarted plot, closing Gitmo isn’t a threat to our security.
John Cole of Balloon Juice sums up with noting that the White House is having to do things alone again, without their allies support or having their back. Actually working against Obama and siding with republicans out of fear of seeming 'weak'.
And again this president is left to clean up another of Bush's messes alone.
He also notes that it is only a matter of time before the far left, the progressives side with the republicans and weak kneed allies in dinging the president. Only it will be over not being progressive enough on Civil Liberties.
And that is how it has been.
While republican presidents enjoy the support of allies when they need it, the democrats are too fearful and spineless to stand with their own. They are always running away, leaving the president to deal with things on his own and then they come back only to stab him in the back.
Obama said from the start, and I was at the announcement of running for President in Springfield that cold Feb. day, that he cannot do this alone. He will need us to help.
During the campaign Obama showed his supporters, and even the democrats in Washington, how to stand up and how to organize and how to get out there and fight for what they want.
All the while Obama was saying he could not doing this alone. He needed us, his fellow dems in congress, ect., to stand with him and organize and fight.
He warned that change would not be easy. It would not come overnight and may take a longer then one term. But, it would come. He warned that the forces of opposition and the status quo were powerful, entrenched and would not go quietly.
He said he needed us to fight with him to push back and to help him bring change.
Yet, these warnings have gone unheeded. His imploring this supporters and his fellow dems to help him push back, to stand up and organize and fight with him went unheard. The only thing that was heard was the word 'change' and little else.
So, for most of the year, with the monumental messes left to him to clean up. The fact that alot of what was done and left to him gave him little room to move and do something 'progressive.' He was left little choice but, to try to dig out and finish the job that was left.
This caused alot of Obama's agneda to be pushed back because he was having to dig out and clean up first before he could get to what he wanted to do.
Instead of helping, as he asked, enough dems have worked for their own agenda and abandoned Obama to deal with things, while going behind his back and trashing him.
Instead of fight with him for change, they sit in their ivory towers, complain and whine. They cry about things not being progressive enough. Not pure enough. Not fast enough. But, what have they done to advance things.
Well, they have also gone and stabbed the man behind his back and then, go out and trash him.
Some, like myself, have seen what was going on and felt it unfair. It is one thing to disagree about issues and policies. It is one thing to wish for things to be done quicker. It is another to do nothing constructive and then turn around and trash the very person who is doing what he can to fix things.
Little has been done to understand why things go slow, who makes laws, why compromise is the normal in congress. Little is done to help this man and to push a change agenda in a positive way. And no one is listening, has listened to what was said.
Whatever the reason, it seems this president is left cleaning up more messes every month left by Bush. He is having to dig out and put things on hold. His agenda is hemmed in by fearful dems, obstructionist republicans and a country on the edge.
On top of this, he is dealing with a world burning due to neglect and bullying by the past administration. A press that is doing a obvious double standard on him.
And a left that is trying to demonize him.
All before his first year is out.
And being called a failure by the press and others before this first year is done and little is taken into account the sheer impossibility of what was left for him.