Whatever partisan chuckle you might get from re-invented posturing by conservatives, its main holding power is a distraction from noticing the way in which Democrats have taken a hold of the worst of the Bush agenda --corporate bailouts, abuse of executive powers, failed middle-east policy-- with insider ownership.

It's all I can do sometimes to keep from weeping. My congressman, Elijah Cummings, came to our Democratic Club meeting about a year ago and complained about something Bush was doing and I had to resist the urge to scream "Well, impeach the son-of-a-bitch already!" Most of the Democrats in Congress are in the pocket of Wall Street and even good guys like Cummings are powerless to do anything about it. We are so screwed.  

Let the banks fail

Let Afghanistan fail

That was the progressive position this whole time? Is it because we think that financial collapse is long-term preferable, or that ceding Afghanistan back to the Taliban makes strategic sense? Or is your objection to the fact that Obama is doing what Bush did and whatever Bush did was wrong so the progressive position is, by default, the opposite.

Obama was handed a mess of epic proportions with very few options. It is unprecedented and I am unclear how anyone knows how best to deal with the situation. No one knows if bailing out the banks was the right thing and anyone who claims to know is either a partisan or a self-aggrandizing hack. Jerome seems to bought into the GOP populist myth that "wall street" somehow exists in a bubble separate from the rest of us (main street). But as Wall Street fails, hundreds-of-thousands of Americans are losing their jobs, health care, etc. So as Wall Street goes, so does the welfare of many regular people in this country. Do I like it? No. But its the hand that Obama was dealt.

Also, Wall Street is two words.

If only Hillary had won! You could be defending our President's repuglicanism tendencies.

Jerome, are you OK?  

I have been an anti-war activist all my adult life but I supported the initial effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan and I support Obama's renewed focus there.

Let the banks fail?  Really?  

I was a Hillary supporter and, like you, laughed at the Hillary-bashers who thought Obama would be so different.  But so far I give him credit for dealign pretty well with an amazing mess on all fronts.

Last I checked, Democrats voted for the bailout before Obama was in office and also supported the auto industry when Republicans refused and tried to use it as an opportunity to bust unions.

I may not be crazy about the Geithner plan or helping the banks but I do understand that we are all in this together. The bankers are too big to fail and I have some optimism after Obama's speech yesterday that he will address these structural problems once we are on the road to recovery.

I am willing to be patient. I think it is good people like Greenwald are pressuring/criticizing Obama on the state secrets stuff and today is when we find out what his administration will release. That will tell us a lot. But I think the fact that Obama has hired or appointed so many people very critical of Bush's practices gives me hope. These people have great integrity and won't carry water for an administration that will not defend the Constitution. Not all of these people have been confirmed.

I am approaching thirty and have become far more pragmatic and patient. I worked in government for awhile and now how things actually work. Obama is on track to withdrawal from Iraq and he is doing what he told us he would do in Afghanistan so it is hard to complain there.

Jerome's theory that there would be a massive liberal netroots to keep Clinton in line is kind of hokey and un-proveable. It seems like more of the pity parade you still hear from people who just can't get over the primary.

Obama has made great progress on health care and energy. Does Jerome really think it possible to do this in the first few months? The Democratic Congress would love nothing more than for Obama to chill out and not pass any major legislation. They are a timid lot. Even Feingold voted against using budget reconciliation to pass an energy plan. WTF? Bernie Sanders is the only progressive senator we have.

Anyway, I just think it is too early for Jerome and others to declare failure. To say that liberals are not giving Obama a hard time is dumb. The liberal advocacy groups like the ACLU and HRC are riding this administration hard. That is their job. Obama needs pressure because it shows people will have his back. Jerome never exerts pressure in a thoughtful way, he just whines.

Jerome Armstrong = Sourpuss Extraordinaire.   Since things aren't going exactly as you want them to go, maybe you should take your ball with you and go home.  You are the whiniest little B imaginable.

Look, I have no issue with calling out Obama on some of the things he ought to be called out for, but I am really disappointed by this diary.

I started reading it hoping it would be a beautiful excoriation of the silly wingnut teabaggers movement, but instead what I got was a tepid criticism of the teabaggers mixed in with a healthy dose of "But Obama does it, too!!!!"

It's time to let June 2008 go.

If you want to write a story criticizing Obama for his back-pedalling on the Bush torture and surveillance policies, please, by all means do... he deserves to be criticized for it.

If you want to criticize his approach to the failing banks from a perspective shared by Paul Krugman, that's fine, too.

But for the love of God, this is supposed to be a progressive website designed to get our Democratic leaders to act like progressives, not constantly throw snark at them because they weren't our preferred candidate in the primaries.

I honestly think you want to see Obama defeated in 2012.  I believe that you are so jaded by his improbable victory that you would cut off your own nose to spite your fate.

I have no doubt that in your heart you believe in progressive ideology.  But it really seems like you are so angry and embittered by the primary wars of last spring that you can NEVER embrace our Democratic president, period, the end.

Everytime I read one of your diaries, I feel like I'm reading a toned-down version of Hillaryis44.org or Alegre's Corner.  I think you hide your disdain better, but not really... you are extremely patronizing and condescending.

MyDD is dying.  Unless something changes here, this website will probably not exist by the time the next presidential primaries roll around.  And Jerome, you are a big reason why so many people have abandoned this place.  It gets really old being a progressive or a Democrat visiting a supposedly progressive blog in which the blog's top dog is constantly expressing his displeasure with the DEMOCRATIC president.

The top 5 Rec List diaries here have a grand total of 62 comments between all 5 of them.

The top 5 Rec List diaries on your main competitor's site have over 1,100 comments between them.

This isn't how it always was.

This website is dying.  And you are helping to kill it.  Which is pretty sad, man.  It's my  understanding that you used to be a legend in the liberal blogosphere - even mentored the guy who started that Orange site at one time.

Get over the bitterness.  Or watch your website sink further into irrelevance.  Which would be a real shame... this place used to be a vibrant gathering place for progressive activism.  Not so much anymore.

I love how this post just totally ignores that Obama got an almost $800 billion stimulus package through Congress in less than a month in office.  You can argue it was too small but anyone who understands how Congress works knows this was a huge accomplishment and the priorities in it were a major change in direction for the country.

And the bill has good health care stuff in it - a 65% COBRA premium subsidy for people who have been laid off.  That is a nice first step towards a more meaningful health reform effort which will take many months if not over a year to enact.  It is a complicated effort as DemFromCT outlines so well at DailyKos.

I don't think Obama is perfect - the state secrets and Afghanistan concern me.  However, the guy has been such a change in direction from the last eight years and the polling data shows the American people see it.

Ironically I found DailyKos to be far more reactionary than MyDD in 2005, 2006, 2007 but it is now far more reasonable than some of the stuff being posted here.

Obama is not the second coming (no one is) but overall I think he is doing pretty well and avg people seem to think he is a change agent based on his poll numbers.  It is all how you see it.

for the state secrets BS.

And, Larry Summers is an abomination.

But, what I do see here is a lot of the same people who strongly disliked (I can't say hated) Obama in the primaries, who complained at some of these exact stances he stated then are now complaining cause he is doing what he said he would do, and somehow accusing him of betraying the party?

He got ELECTED by taking the party there.

I will give you State Secrets and Summers, those are ROYAL F-ups, and it is unforgiveable.

Still you sound like the Tea-bagers, he inherited an 8 year or longer FUBAR, and, yup, he hasn't got it fixed in ~100 days.

Lets see where this economic/banking redo lands, if he backs off on putting some in of the controls that Phil Gramm took away, and it's Summers finger prints all over it, HELL, I will join you in starting to write Slam Obama diaries.

Some of the other stuff being thrown at him here is just a slightly recolored version of what Faux is throwing at him.

I get the same sense here when I see 87 Diaries whining that Obama isn't doing Single Payer.

WTF?

He has a congress with maybe 15 REAL liberal or SLIGHTLY liberal Democratic Senators, the rest are closer to Ronnie Rayguns in ideology then to Franklin Roosevelt.

Even everyones god-damned liberal super-hero, Russ Feingold voted against using reconcilliation to pass Energy.

Face it folks, there is Bernie Sanders, and he's not even a Democrat. My take is, with the exception of Ted Kennedy, most of the rest are to the right of where 90% of the Democratic Senate was 30 years ago.

I know this makes the PUMA Crowd wince, but the most effective president (and I said EFFECTVE not good) was Reagan, and he shoved the pendelum so hard to the right that Bill Clinton was barely able to slow it down, and only the worst president maybe ever caused it to hit the hard right peg and stop.

It will take Obama all of 8 years, to even START to pull us back to the left. There is no magic wand of liberal transformation.  

THIS is the hand he is working with!!!!

Yet, with the exception of a small group wanting to rip Evan Bayhs head off NONE of the Obama bashers even mention he has a congress that is so far to the Right of what LBJ had it's almost incomprenshible to call it Democratic controlled, and STILL if he can't get single payer WHICH HE NEVER PROMISED he is an abject failure.

Circular firing squad, old habits die hard.

Just the last one standing.