After Clinton, of course, who managed to reform welfare, cut government employment numbers by 15%, accelerate free trade agreements such as NAFTA, and deregulate the banks.
Rachel Maddow said it best.
Below the fold, I argue that Obama is giving Clinton a run for his money....
Like all progressives, I laud the repeal of DADT. But I remain extremely skeptical of this administration, who, in my mind, has turned into the second most successful Republican president of this century.
First, we got a continuation of the unitary executive powers, which included:
In continuing these policies as a Democrat, Obama has neutered all the work that was done during the Bush years to delegitimize these activities, and has reinforced Dick Cheney's world of no-checks-and-balances.
After that, we get Bob Dole's health care bill, complete with health care mandates that originated out of right wing think tanks. The health care bill contains nary a provision to reimport drugs from Canada or allow Medicare/Medicare to negotiate drug prices, two key progressive ideas intended to reduce the cost of health care and shore up Medicare/Medicaid for future generations.
Next, we get an extension of supply-side tax cuts, which codifies the idea that if an administration allows temporary tax cuts to expire it is the equivalent of that administration raising taxes (rather than the original crafters of the temporary component who are responsible). We also get an extension of trade deals with South Korea and India.
Now, we brace for privatization of Social Security via Personal Retirement Accounts.
I apologize for raising my voice here, but what on God's green earth is going on here?!? Progressives need to be very careful when cheering this administration.
Due to his systematic embracing of Republican policies, and thus Republican frames, the President has blown one of the greatest opportunities in history to lock in electoral victory for Democrats for decades to come. It was not uncommon for our grandparents to display two portraits of non-family members on the wall--Jesus Christ and FDR. Now, rather than having our first African American president joining that group, we have idiots in colonial garb with Lipton teabags stapled to their hats.... :sigh:
The electoral prospects of Democrats in the last election and moving forward would be very different had Obama made his Keynesian stimulus impervious to critique, by, for example, coming out and calling for an "Manhattan Project" style push to get America off foreign oil. Rather than cobbling together thousands of unrelated spending projects with nothing linking them together other than the ability of Republicans to scour the list for projects that sounded like something that Beavis & Butthead would laugh at, Obama handed firepower to the enemy. Then, by acquiescing to desires for tax cuts over two or three votes, rather than playing hard ball and threatening to have key committee chairs revoked from incalcitrant Senators and pledging to support primary attempts against the holdouts, Obama forever soiled Keynesianism in the eyes of the American public.
Now, it appears, Obama is attempting to privatize Social Security under the banner of compromise with economic terrorists. Is he honestly trying to destroy the Democratic Party? Obama has already allowed Card Check to die on the vine as well as Cram Down. The former would have started to reverse thirty years of declining or stagnating wages; the latter would have helped America get back on its feet faster.
We need Howard Dean, or Elizabeth Warren, or Anthony Weiner, or someone of equivalent progressive bonafides to primary Obama, and reset the narrative. Because frankly what should have been a fairy tale storybook of progressive domination of politics for decades has turned into a Stephen King novel for progressives instead.
UPDATE
Comment by CathodeRay
Everyone has a hissy over the diary's title.
Then they conveniently pretend like there's not a list of facts presented in the diary that they should feel compelled to address, one-by-one, were they the least bit honest about their assertion that this President even bears a passing resemblance to a liberal.
Sadly, it's not even a complete list...
So true. Sadly, no one wants to address the FACTS presented in the diary. The only thing that is an opinion is my title and the assertion that Obama has been monstrously damaging to the long-term progressive agenda. It seems people are confusing tactics for the war. Like it or not, Obama is losing the war, and is ceding ground to the enemy almost daily. The mere fact that if I had I written this diary two weeks ago, we would not have seen so many negative responses just demonstrates my point--progressives should be very careful when they embrace Obama because he throws them a bone (e.g., DADT).
Let me add another depressing FACT about Obama, mentioned by a commenter:
Under Obama, we also got record deportations of illegal immigrants.