I sincerely believe Barack Obama would be on MY SIDE on this issue

[Political Heretic]

If Obama were to pop into GD:P today and read the debates between the "stop being so critical, why do you hate Obama, give him a break he's only been president 60 days, the people criticizing really never supported him" crowd,

And the....

"its our responsibility as citizens to pressure our leaders and critically scrutinize their actions, its a mark of respect that we even care enough to do so, its never too soon to talk about right and wrong policy, or demand that our leaders keep their focus squarely on social and economic justice issues" crowd...

....Obama would back the latter group and not the former. Nothing about what Obama has said has ever given any indication that he ever desired to be treated like a fragile flower, or that he wanted his supporters to spend more time defending him against questions and scrutiny that they do advocating for a better country.

On the contrary, he regularly described his desire to hear from critics, as well as emphasizing the need for both transparency and rigorous debate. Never once have I felt that Obama would be afraid of any scrutiny we might give our President, and I feel like anything else than my full attention and careful, critical questioning does him a tremendous disservice.

Obama has never once asked anyone to "wait" to question. It's people here who have invented the "its too soon to question" meme and started throwing it around. Its their feelings that are getting hurt. It's their emotions that are upset by the critical questioning, not Obamas and not this administration's. They do a huge disservice to Obama and everything he claims to represent by trying to suggest that people should stop or even "tone down" their criticism, or wait to give it.

The President can handle it. Not to mention the fact that this is a discussion forum, with no "red line" into the Oval Office as much as some people would like to think we have that. If we can't discuss our criticisms and concerns here, then where?

I'm sorry that I guess some people assumed our role for the next four years was to throw confetti and just be happy that we didn't have Bush anymore. But that's pretty ignorant. Our role is what it has always been, to be ever vigilant and active in pushing ALL of our leaders further than they might naturally go (given all the countervailing forces at work pulling them in many different directions, NONE of them progressive). This current explosion of populist sentiment - now is the time to capitalize on that and foster that to GROW. We should be demanding the behavior we expect from our government. And for those of us who are white middle class like the overwhelming majority of DU is, the way we speak about our years of frustration isn't always going to be "pretty." That's something you need to learn to deal with.

The time for pom pom waving is over. I criticize and I question precisely because I sincerely like Obama as a person (not that this should matter in politics AT ALL) and I believe that he will be a good president! I criticize and question because Obama is most likely person in that office in a long long long time to actually respond and listen to serious critique and feedback.

So I guess its this community's call in the end.... if all you want is a place to wave pom poms of happiness for the next four years, then welcome to pathetic obscurity. I would suggest however, that DU has a history that is much better than that, and hopefully a community that is still much more responsible than that. Perhaps we ought to to make this site a center of critical accountability for our administration. There are over 500 hundred campaign promises that the administration has made. Who better than this community to keep track of all of them, and to call, right letters, organize - protest if necessary - to ensure that this administration doesn't forget its promises in the midst of all the other chaos of the white house and the presidency.

How about that.