Reply #30: I don't find either this piece, nor the original piece being defended, all that great

[dsc]

I won't answer the whole thing since it is late but to take just one part.

The good ol' public option pony.

Here was a two fold problem that the author just plain ignores. Both the public option, and the lack of a mandate, were explicit promises that Obama ran on. It is perfectly reasonable to be upset when a candidate promises one thing and then does another. It is especially rational if that was one of the positions Obama used to differentiate himself in the primaries, which he did.

:bluebox: Misdirected anger at the president for saving the global economy from a depression that had to involve rescuing financial institutions (although David does not mention that the TARP is running a profit for the taxpayers).

Without going into whether or not TARP is indeed making a profit, the problem many on the left have with TARP was the lack of any restrictions being placed on Wall Street. Now much of that is Bush's fault but there was a TARP 2 which was passed when Obama could have helped shape it to be more fair to us.


:redbox: The idiotic idea that the president rejected Medicare drug-rate negotiation provisions in health reform when it was him that got huge price discounts (beginning at 50%) for Medicare Part D recipients. This is based on anonymous pharmaceutical industry sources (see, suddenly when it's convenient for him, Sirota assumes that the drug industry is telling the truth).

It wasn't just the drug industry saying this, it was also Democratic sources on capital Hill, are they liars too.

:bluebox: Bitching about the president's action in Libya - that not only were completely legal but successful.

Successful or not, and what government we end up with there will determine that, it is still something that candidate Obama suggested he wouldn't be doing. In fairness, I actually think this was a good policy but to say that one has to be racist to find fault with it is absurd. Clinton got plenty of criticism on the left for a similar operation in Kosovo.

:redbox: Breathtakingly stupid assumption that all international trade deals are "NAFTA-style."

They are NAFTA style. None of them currently have any labor or enviromental standards in them though Obama does want to pass the standards at the same time. But in current form, it is hard to make a case for these agreements not being NAFTA like.

:bluebox: Complaining about warrantless wiretapping and confusing its current form with what Bush had done, and not even mentioning that Congress definitively rewrote the rules that the government operates under in 2008. That change did not satisfy a lot of civil libertarians, but no one in their right mind can argue that it is the same as the unlimited powers Bush had claimed in 2005 and 2006.