I found your hard work so inspiring. I found your continual contributions so encouraging. I also saw that you were getting wrapped up in rhetoric and ideas and not paying attention to the facts.
Still, I have stood back and watched as you have taken every opportunity to attack a President for behaving in the ways he told us he would behave as our candidate.
But, it increasingly seems that you have decided what you want "change" to mean regardless of what the President meant.
You have ignored the fact that we elected a compromiser, a man with a true penchant for bipartisanship and avoiding being heavy-handed.
You have neglected political realities and instead attempted to subject our leaders to the same ideological purity test we make fun of the Republicans for using.
You have raised your flag in protest against a troop increase in a war the President, as a candidate, called a "war of necessity." The President didn't hide his feelings from you.
I know it is popular for you to claim the President has done only minor things while ignoring the reality of just where our country stood on January 19, 2009, where we would have stood if the election had gone differently, and where we stand today.
I know it's popular for you to pretend that the small things the President has done are meaningless because you want him to do what you defined "change" to be, what you convinced yourself you were voting for.
But in the big things, Kossacks, health care, climate change, the economy, improving infrastructure, creating jobs, forestalling the foreclosure crisis, and addressing renewable energy, you have ignored that this President has done more than any other president in our history in less than a year.
Where is your basis in reality now? Why are you not devoting a great deal more time to acknowledging reality rather than living in the fantasy land of the presidential candidate you imagined?
I'm a young man, Kossacks. But after years of enjoying this community, I dared to think that you might actually stand by and support a President who is not only doing his damndest to make this country better, but is also living up to the promises he made on the campaign trail. Support in giving him more than 10 months of a 48-month term. Support in acknowledging that even when you disagree with issues he campaigned on delivering, you can't be mad when he delivers on them.
Instead, I see the same old attitude that has doomed us to electoral failure.
Please step up and back into reality. Please stop pretending we elected the President to do anything other than what he told us he would do if we elected him. Your failure, so far, to maintain your basis in reality, is pushing you to the fringe and, honestly, making you look silly. This has been a profound disappointment.
You are losing me, Daily Kos, and many other fair-minded, even-keeled, reality-based Democrats.
UPDATE: Well, this turned into more than I expected. Thanks everyone for the great dialogue. I especially want to thank all of those who have posted constructive comments whether they agreed or disagreed with the diary. Also, a huge thanks to the several e-mailers who have written to encourage me for writing this diary. I will respond to each of you soon!
I have been called a Republican, a troll, and even a plant from the Obama Administration. Hopefully, my check from the Admin for this diary comes at the same time Kos' Soros check arrives. Unfortunately, I'm just a progressive law student who is proud as hell of a President who is doing quite a good job. Is he perfect? No. Do I disagree with him regularly? Sure. But I didn't vote for him under the auspices that he would be Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders.
I'm glad GrannyDoc wrote her diary and I wrote this one. It's good to have these discussions. However, what was in Granny's diary and is in a lot of the comments in this diary truly frightens me as it relates to 2010 and especially 2012. As one person who emailed me put it: (paraphrasing) Moderates voted for President Obama, too. Guys, as much as we want the President to push through every bit of the progressive agenda, he is just not as progressive as we are! We all saw it when he was in the Senate and we are continuing to see it.
But in the end, we are getting the most progressive action this country has seen since the New Deal and the Great Society. Let us applaud the President when he takes action we support and YES, let us let him know when we disagree with him but let's be honest with ourselves about what we expect from him.
In closing, a big tip of the hat to the person who added the "whining" tag to this diary. Your maturity has no match.