HOW CAN ANYBODY POSSIBLY THINK HE'S A LIBERAL?

From Hullabaloo, blogger digby opines on all the "teachable moments" blown off by our liberal-in-chief:

At this point there's no longer any reason to assume that Obama doesn't get it or is just trying to get his legislation through and doesn't want to alienate Republicans. He is what he appears to be, which is a dry, pragmatic, status quo, technocrat who makes symbolic leftward gestures while offering center right policies. The power of his iconic status is enough to create the illusion of idealism, which keeps him interesting. The Right is freaky enough to keep the left wary of going too far in challenging him.

But the right smells that he prefers to avoid fights, whether for psychological or ideological reasons, and they are successfully pushing him ever rightward while portraying him as a radical socialist. It's very clever. But then they are far more clever at macro-politics than anyone on the left*.

And

*They have a different set of problems right now, which are evening up the score for the moment. But they have many years of brand identity to get them through this momentary blip --- especially with the Dems failing to take the opportunity to damage their project.

More here.

Right. Well, I've been saying this all along, and, to be fair to digby, she has, too, to some extent: Obama is no liberal. Indeed, he's actually something of a conservative. Not what passes for conservative these days, the frothing-at-the-mouth far-right lunatic fringe, but, by historic standards, definitely to the right of center, a Clinton-style Democrat, chock full of good vibes and groovy talk, but, when it comes right down to it, pro-big business, pro-war, pro-establishment. Capitalist exploitation and government oppression with a puff of marijuana smoke and a smile. His coddling of the petroleum industry, even as crude oil starts to coat the Gulf coast, his backroom deals with the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, his expansion of the meaningless war in Afghanistan, his embracing of Bush era police-state executive powers, and on and on, all make it absolutely clear that Obama cannot possibly viewed as a liberal.

So why the hell do people still think he's liberal?

Conservative attitudes on the matter I can dismiss immediately. To them, anyone not conservative enough is a liberal, and that means lots of hardcore right-wingers. I'm not so concerned with moderates, either. I know I've bashed them before for not believing in anything, but, in this case, that's a plus; moderates, being non-ideological by definition, don't seem to concern themselves with such labels, unless they're falling prey to right-wing fear-mongering, which definitely happens from time to time, but doesn't appear to be much of a factor with Obama.

No, it's the liberals themselves that confound me. It's completely obvious now that the President isn't one of them. But he continues to get the lion's share of their support. I'm assuming that Obama hooked liberals during the campaign with all his copacetic speechifying, all that "hope" and "change" rhetoric, but juxtaposed against his actual deeds while in the Oval Office, his hippie talk has got to be wearing thin. I've heard a lot of liberals argue that, no matter what, he's a billion times better than Bush, and therefore deserves our loyalty and support. No argument from me on the first part, but my take is that he's really only keeping the seat warm for the real conservative nazi freaks when they manage to get back into power. And I don't understand why American liberals don't see it the same way.

This makes me nervous. It says to me that to liberals, and maybe even to the entire US population in general, politics has way less to do with action than it does with image and rhetoric. And in this era of public relations, advertising, and mass media, that's dangerous. Really dangerous. It means that reality is far less important than how people feel about reality.

Democracy is ill suited to such a population.

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