I love the Anne of Green Gables series. Those books were my bedtime reading for at least a year and for all that they are good stories but they also have some good lessons in them. One of those was the saying that a used hat is bound to fit someone, but that doesn't mean it was made for them. Basically what it comes down to is that just because you think something was about you doesn't mean it actually is.
This is what I thought of when reading some comments here and other sites about Robert Gibbs' comments. While saying these comments was, in my opinion, stupid and I can't say I don't understand where he is coming from. To quote Rachel Maddow "the last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal." But there are people on the left who attack him for not doing enough, for not being liberal enough, for not fighting enough against Republican slurs or being too willing to give in to Fox New's fabricated scandals.
And there is legitimate reasons to criticize the President. His stance on gay marriage is not worthy of someone whose own parents wouldn't have been allowed to get married themselves years ago. In my opinion he is still trying to hard to include Republicans and he treats Fox News like a credible news agency. But I also realize that the guy is doing a thankless job right now. We all know what he is facing - two wars, a economic catastrophe, and a Republican party that has decided to act like toddlers unhappy that they are getting a time out for throwing their food on the floor. He's getting questioned about whether he's actually an American, compared to Hitler, called a socialist and that he's going to pull the plug on granny.
And in addition to that people that are supposed to be his allies are attacking him from the other side. If it were me I'd be pissed to. Especially if it was said about someone I respected and admired rather than myself. A lot of times we can take more when it is directed at us rather than at another. People can say what they like about me and I'm pretty good at shrugging it off, diss my sister and I'm going on the warpath. So Gibbs said stuff out of frustration but stupidly said it to someone on the record rather than doing it in private.
But I guess I don't think he's completely wrong. I think that there are people who are just as stubborn and ideological as the Teabaggers (although without the racism obviously). And unlike the teaparty I think those people are a very small part of the Democratic or Progressive communities. And so I wonder about the people who are getting so worked about about Robert Gibb's comments as if he was talking about them. He criticized people who said say President Obama is like President Bush, and people who"will [only] be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon" or people who "wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president". My interpretation of those comments are that they are directed towards people who are very much the liberal counterparts to Tea Party members, the people who aren't satisfied with anything less than what they view as 'right'. Not the vast majority of people who voted for him - the liberals outside of Washington. And if you aren't someone who thinks President Obama is like President Bush, that we should not stop until we have Canadian healthcare and eliminated the Pentagon, etc then maybe there are other things we should be focusing on. Like keeping control of the House and the Senate as well as state level positions.
I understand not being overly enthusiastic about voting for Democrats this year or in 2012. We've ended up falling short of where we thought we would be that election night in 2008. It is hard to get fired up when you've had to compromise over and over again. But I've always thought that you do what you need to do regardless of how not fun it may be. And doing what I can to prevent the Republican Party from having th ability to block and not just impede progress and try to push more of what got us into this mess through Congress and dare the President to veto is more than enough motivation for me to fill in the dot next to the Democratic candidate.
Just to be clear, I am not saying that we shouldn't stop trying to get better Democrats into office. Nor am I saying that we shouldn't continue to press for better and more progressive policies and legislation. But I also think we need to focus on keeping the Democratic majorities in Congress. Because personally when I think about everything that has gotten done in the last year, flaws and all, vs what we could expect with a Republican controlled Congress I know which situation looks better to me.