If Obama's protectors hadn't been so protective ...

[Amelia]

... Obama would have been a better, more positively effective president.


If Obama's limitations had been acknowledged in practical ways up front, then he wouldn't be so easy to cast as a failure because he wouldn't have his early soaring image to be measured against.

But more importantly, if criticism hadn't been suppressed and branded as racist then there would be less resentment. There would have been more sense that a fair battle had been fought and Obama had won it on the merits, so there would have been more willingness to shake hands and get some work done.


The suppression and branding was used against Democrats who criticized Obama during the 2007/2008 primary season, was ramped up in the the general election, and was continued into 2010. The afterglow has worn off pretty thoroughly now. People left and right criticize Obama now. Even Chris Matthews criticizes Obama now. I feel better about America going forward, both in the rough and tumble political summer and in the next four years, because all the players seem more real now, not demons, not angels.



Except for Al Franken. He's still a demon.

I keed! I keed!

 

[occupied]

If the right would quit coming up with such easily debunked conspiracy theories and branding them as valid criticism then perhaps they would be better off, they let the birthers and Beck and Limbaugh control the criticism and ended up looking like a bunch of fools.

 

[Amelia]

If the right would quit coming up with such easily debunked conspiracy theories and branding them as valid criticism then perhaps they would be better off, they let the birthers and Beck and Limbaugh control the criticism and ended up looking like a bunch of fools.

It's way more than that. But good work trying to continue to marginalize even moderates by implying they were conspiracy nuts.

Things were so bad that Geraldine Ferraro was called racist. Something was seriously out of whack.

The Obama protectors' overreaction managed to turn the inevitable fringe into a plurality of people who felt their valid criticisms and observations were being shut out by people whose job it was to pay attention to that sort of feedback. That set things up for some seriously wounded feelings and rigid resistance. Which was the opposite of what Obama needed to be able to be a good leader.