Sam Youngman writes at The Hill that the "professional left" has been hectoring the Obama administration. Translated: the left doesn't march in lock-step with its leadership. And by the way, "professional left" is a terrible phrase to lay on thoughtful voters and activists. The left resists the increasingly authoritarian behaviors of Republican party's followers who do, indeed, march in lock-step.
But it's bad when your president and vice-president -- whom you worked hard to put in office -- blow you off as "whiners" because you don't march in lock-step.
Obama and Biden have in recent weeks repeatedly pressed the voters who propelled them into office in 2008 to get off the sidelines, with Biden going as far as to jokingly, but repeatedly, insult those voters at his rallies.
But members of the “professional left,” a term coined by Robert Gibbs in an interview with The Hill, said that Obama and Biden's admonitions to Democrats to “stop whining” will not turn the tide in favor of Democrats.
So the left is accused of biting back when, in fact, they are better acquainted with issues and with the wide variety of voters who elected Obama and Biden (though, god knows, not Robert Gibbs).
High-profile liberals say President Obama's attempts to badger Democrats into voting will not work this November.
Jane Hamsher, founder of the blog FireDogLake.com, told The Hill in an email Friday that the strategy being employed by the White House as polls show a Republican landslide looming is the wrong way to go.“Hectoring your supporters doesn't work, and it never has,” Hamsher said. “And anyone with as much campaign experience as Obama and [Vice President] Biden knows that, which is why you never saw them do it in their own races.”
Excuse me for staying on the sidelines of this spat. I think both sides are right and both sides are annoyingly useless, whether FireDogLake or White House strategists.
Frankly, they're the ones that sound like the whiners. Most liberals and progressives and Democrats are well aware of what the stakes are. The left is not wrong to believe it's doing heavier lifting than the White House in the current campaign. They're the ones who include many unemployed, people who are living on the edge and are horrified by the anonymous millions being spent to unseat decent representatives. The left has every reason to be up to here with the smug ignorance of media figures and most of Washington.
It's not for Obama to ask us to be on his side. It's his job to be on our side.
