President Obama bristles when he is the target of activist tactics he once used

[alp227]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by grantcart (a host of the Barack Obama group).

Peter Wallsten, Washington Post, 6/9/12

Barack Obama entered the stately Roosevelt Room and assumed his customary spot. Many of the nation’s leading immigration advocates had been waiting for him inside the windowless meeting space in the West Wing, eager to make their case. The president’s reserved chair was situated at the center of the long conference table, its back slightly elevated, a gentle reminder of power, but this did not seem to intimidate the activists on that March afternoon in 2010.

One after another, they spoke their minds, telling the president what he had done or not done that bothered them. They complained that a rising number of deportations on his watch were “terrorizing” Hispanic neighborhoods and tearing apart good families. They warned that he was losing credibility with a crucial constituency that had put its faith in him.

Obama’s body stiffened, according to several witnesses, and he started to argue with them. If they wanted meaningful change, he said, they should focus their pressure on the Republicans in Congress who opposed reform, not on him. He was with them but could only do so much. “I am not a king,” he said.

That night a group of Hispanic lawmakers came to the White House. They, too, were coming to talk about immigration, and after hearing about the earlier confrontation, the lawmakers were bracing for another argument. Instead, they encountered a president in a reflective mood, almost contrite.

“Look who I am,” Obama said, as several guests recalled. He reminded them that as a black man he had experienced discrimination in his life and understood “what it feels like for people to not be treated fairly.”

The variations in his demeanor that day and night illuminate the competing impulses of sympathy and frustration that have characterized Obama’s relationship with liberal activist groups since he entered the White House. Their uneasy alliance has gone through three distinct phases, moving from great expectations to tense confrontations to pragmatic coexistence as the next election approaches. With Hispanics and gays — key liberal constituencies that moved early in Obama’s tenure to openly challenge the Democratic president — the tension has mostly been about means more than ends, when more than what. The president’s history, his temperament and style, his idealism vs. his ambition — all have come into play as he has responded to pressure from these two essential segments of his base.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obama-bristles-when-he-is-the-target-of-activist-tactics-he-once-used/2012/06/09/gJQA0i7JRV_singlePage.html

[nofurylike]

1. because one group threatens and the other discusses.

thank you for posting, alp227.

[intaglio]

2. Isn't your thread title a bit misleading?

and isn't the WP partly owned by Berkshire Hathaway?

[treestar]

3. I sympathize and think the laws need to be liberalized

but it's not fair to expect any President not to enforce them as they are. That is not a good model to follow. President Obama is right - bother Congress about it and any Congress can be lobbied to pass bills. But immigration is a hot button after 911 and especially hard to change, and won't change with a Republican House. Where were these people in 2010? That election is what killed hope of compassionate immigration reform.

With a tough economy, changing immigration laws to make them favorable to the immigrant is well nigh impossible.

[freshwest]

4. +1

[grantcart]

5. Locking The title is inflammatory, untrue and disproven in the article

First the idea that Obama used high level publicity stunts against progressive office holders is rather undone with this:

Obama was not always comfortable staging direct actions against politicians and soon chose instead to become a politician himself

Obama's record as a community organizer showed that he worked at opening communications and getting dialog established, and as the article states 'mentoring'.


Second the tactic that Barack Obama has used is to put himself in the electoral process and that is what he is continuing to do so.

Third the article starts with the premise that the President is hostile to liberal groups and uses as evidence his "body stiffened".
The real evidence is that as President he invited them to the WhiteHouse. You would have to go back to Roosevelt to find a similar type of enc outer.

And finally there is this

The article alleges that the President goes through a cosmic personality change in private

The Barack Obama who spars with liberals in private seems far different from the man most Americans have come to know for his even-keeled, cerebral presence. He drops the formalities of his position and the familiar rhetoric of his speeches, revealing a president willing to speak personally and candidly to his allies, and also one who can be thin-skinned, irritable, even sarcastic and hectoring if his motives or tactics are questioned

Right.

The title is not based in fact, the analysis is not based in fact and now we are supposed to believe that the writer has uncovered a never before noticed metamorphose that the President undergoes in private.


So we are locking.

It is an article where the writer wrote a clever headline and then tried to mash a pile of shit to make it fit.

It didn't.

It is not suitable for the Barack Obama Group because this is not the area of DU where you can come to spread untrue unsubstantiated rumors against the President.

There are other areas for that.

But before that, before I posted anything by Wallsten you might want to be aware that among liberals he is not considered a friend or a truthful person having been shown to steal this article from Debbie Schlussel:

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/3647/ripped-off-by-the-l-a-times-peter-wallstens-cribbed-piece-on-palestinian-support-for-obama/