by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing \u2014 even lampooning \u2014 Barack Obama as a one-term president (\u201cone and done\u201d). Centrist Democrats up for reelection in 2012 openly worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the new pariah lose them votes.<\/p>\n
Left-wing think tanks, environmentalists, and academics vent their anger against Obama for supposedly being too soft on Republicans and too ready to compromise with right-wingers. But what really has caused the left-wing falling-out, less than three years after the hope-and-change crush on Barack Obama?<\/p>\n
For now, it\u2019s the polls.<\/p>\n
Obama\u2019s popularity has plummeted to little more than 40 percent approval. Suddenly, Democrats worry that the public anger could be contagious. It might infect them as well \u2014 in the way a sinking George W. Bush hurt congressional Republicans up for reelection in 2006.<\/p>\n
Yet the Left cannot fairly blame Obama. After all, he rammed through on a strictly partisan vote the century-old liberal dream of a federal takeover of healthcare \u2014 something that Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton never could do. Keynesians never dreamed that a president could actually borrow $5 trillion for domestic spending in less than three years.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration even tried to shut down a brand-new Boeing aircraft plant on the shaky argument that the company might thereby be hiring fewer union workers somewhere else. For environmentalists, Obama kept oil producers out of new fields in Alaska, the American West, the Gulf, and other offshore sites. Hundreds of billions in borrowed federal money went to failed \u201cwind and solar\u201d plants in an effort to jump-start \u201cmillions of green jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Obama revolution that occurred under the radar was even more insidious. Open-borders activists were promised that the government would not bother illegal aliens unless they were wanted for felonies. Never before has the United States joined a foreign government in suing one of its own states \u2014 in the way that the Justice Department and Mexico have either filed or joined suits seeking to overturn Arizona\u2019s immigration law.<\/p>\n
From January 2009 through 2010, Obama advanced the liberal dream with a passion not seen since the New Deal days of Franklin Roosevelt. He bulldozed all opposition and rammed through most of what he wanted with the help of a Democratic Congress: Obamacare, record borrowing, record spending, and hundreds of hard-left presidential appointees and judges.<\/p>\n
Far from being namby-pamby, Obama has gone after opponents like no president since Richard Nixon. He urged Hispanics to \u201cpunish our enemies.\u201d He called his political opponents \u201chostage takers.\u201d The affluent were lumped together with the super-rich and derided as \u201cmillionaires and billionaires,\u201d \u201ccorporate-jet owners,\u201d and \u201cfat cat\u201d bankers. His supporters in unions and the Congressional Black Caucus freely blasted the Tea Party with slurs \u2014 with the unspoken assurance that the president\u2019s constant calls for civility certainly did not apply to them.<\/p>\n
Critics may lampoon Obama\u2019s use of a teleprompter, but he still uses it to good effect in his near-daily speeches. Obama is a far better megaphone for left-wing policies than was the lackluster Jimmy Carter, the pompous Al Gore, or the condescending John Kerry. He easily outshines the wooden Harry Reid and the polarizing Nancy Pelosi. Compared with Obama and his smoothness, an often gaffe-prone Vice President Joe Biden can seem a liability. Obama is as charismatic as \u201cI feel your pain\u201d Bill Clinton \u2014 as we saw in 2008, when Obama destroyed the primary challenge of Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n
So the Left cannot really complain that Obama either betrayed the cause or proved particularly inept in advancing it. Instead, what Obama\u2019s supporters are mad about is that the public is boiling over chronic 9 percent unemployment, a comatose housing market, escalating food and fuel prices, near-nonexistent economic growth, a gyrating stock market, record deficits, $16 trillion in aggregate debt, and a historic credit downgrading. And voters are not just mad, but are blaming these hard times on the liberal Obama agenda of more regulations, more federal spending, more borrowing, more talk of taxes, and more \u201cstimulus\u201d programs.<\/p>\n
A mostly moderate-to-conservative public has concluded that it does not like the new liberal agenda. After three years, it believes that the big government\/big borrowing medicine made the inherited illness far worse. Voters may or may not like Obama, but they surely do not like what he is still trying to do.<\/p>\n
In response, the Left needs a sacrificial lamb. So it has nonsensically turned with a fury on Obama as if he were culpable for pushing through the Left\u2019s own agenda. If Democrats do not blame the public\u2019s anger on their once-beloved messenger, then they are left only with their message itself. And that is something they simply cannot accept.<\/p>\n
\u00a92011 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Suddenly, liberal op-ed writers are trashing \u2014 even lampooning \u2014 Barack Obama as a one-term president (\u201cone and done\u201d). Centrist Democrats up for reelection in 2012 openly worry about inviting a kindred president into their districts, lest the new pariah lose them votes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[362,271],"tags":[12,77,165,1026,1057,74,580,50,527,1052],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-wM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":982,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-un-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":0},"title":"The Un-Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama\u2019s favorability in the polls fell when he acted like himself \u2014 overexposed, hard-left in his press conferences, and boastful about legislative achievements like Obamacare and a stimulus of more than $1 trillion. Then a strange thing happened. Obama largely went quiet.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "First Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"First Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/first-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3222,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-same-old-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":1},"title":"The Same Old Change","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We will likely see a lot of political \"readjustments\" come January, once President-elect Barack Obama and many new Democratic congressmen assume office, and the Republican administration leaves. Take the filibuster. For much of the Bush administration, out-of-power Democratic senators defended it as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2008"","block_context":{"text":"November 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/november-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6732,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-fallout-for-the-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s Fallout for the Left","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He will not be harmed by his \"misspeaking,\" but his fellow liberals will. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 Conservatives keep blaring, \u201cObama lied!\u201d over the president\u2019s serial untruths about the Affordable Care Act. Even liberal pundits now talk of the president\u2019s \u201cmisspeaking,\u201d or even of his \u201cmisleading\u201d statements\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/3963358921_d33ba22354-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1460,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":3},"title":"Obama Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-presidency-squandered\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":4},"title":"A Presidency Squandered","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The Obama narrative is that he inherited the worst mess in memory and has been stymied ever since by a partisan Congress \u2014 while everything from new ATM technology to the Japanese tsunami conspired against him. But how true are those claims? Barack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6040,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-is-just-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2032,"position":5},"title":"Obama Is Just Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Suddenly, half the country is upset with Obama for the recent flurry of scandals. Even some in the media are perplexed. Why the sudden angst, given that Obama is simply being Obama? We, not he, changed the rules. Once Barack Obama was elected to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Retrospective"","block_context":{"text":"Retrospective","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/retrospective\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2034,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions\/2034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}