Republicans: "He's too liberal.", Democrats: "He's not liberal enough."

earth two superman · July 2010

Who's right?

BethlehemBill · July 2010

he was always going to be too liberal for republicans, and even though obama is very similar (policy wise) to W, he'll never be good enough for the right. as for the left, turns out obama is pretty moderate which is why they dont think he's liberal enough. the sad thing is that obama promised all things to all people on the campaign trail (repeal DADT, HCR, pull out of both wars, close gitmo, save the economy, financial reform, bipartisanship). once he got into office he discovered that the "business as usual" that he promised to change wasn't going anywhere. he wasted his political momentum on the health care debacle, and now the republicans know they can make him look even worse by dragging their feet.

you cant really say who's "right" here, because its two opinions from two different points of view. as I see it, obama is a moderate, but he doesnt have any political momentum and his presidency so far has been a failure. the liberals are right when they say that he hasnt been "liberal enough" because the stimulus was too small to be effective. the republicans are right when they say that he's "too liberal" because he's for amnesty, and pushed for the HC bill. the bottom line is that its nothing more than partisan bickering from both sides. the same exact bickering that obama campaigned to eliminate. hope and change on the campaign trail = business as usual once in office.

anthony7q · July 2010

I wasn't excited about him when he won the election and I'm not excited about him now. Glenn Ford from Blackagendareport says that he's center/right...

Barack Obama has picked up Bush's marbles and put them back into play. He is the right wing's most potent weapon, the one before which liberal Democrats throw up their hands in surrender without the dignity of a fight. Obama, working in plain sight over the past 18 months, has constructed and rigged a deficit commission to render a kind of death sentence to the foundational program of Roosevelt's New Deal.
Obama will pretend that circumstances and Republicans are forcing him to call for austerity. But that's a lie; he came in singing the GOP's song, and is behaving precisely as one would expect from a center-right administration. Obama is in his ideal element, constantly saying "yes" to the Party of "no."
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com

shootemwon · July 2010

Obama isn't a liberal at all. He's to the right of Nixon. I know the whole political culture has shifted to the right in the last 40 years, but still, Obama is a centrist. Center-left based on his initial agenda, and center-right based on his actual governing. Republicans say he's veered to the far left since taking office, because he talked about being bipartisan, but 1.) bipartisan means you include ideas from both sides in advancing YOUR agenda, not theirs, and 2.) the GOP has shown no serious interest in bipartisan work on serious matters. Obama continually makes the mistake of conceding things to the GOP without demanding they give some support, which allows the dismantling of his best liberal policy plans but still appearing to be strictly partisan in the process.