Why can't we elect Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to the whitehouse in '16?

[Jim Lane]

76. Your insinuations against Obama's critics are false.

On DU, there's been very little of the pie-in-the-sky perfectionism that you insinuate. When people have said or implied that Obama sold out, it's been because of his failure to live up to his own standards.

Let's take health care. Yes, DUers tend to favor single payer, and it's legitimate to urge Obama to go that route -- but most of Obama's critics here, even if they disagree with his policies, recognize that he didn't endorse single payer, so they don't call him a sellout on that basis. He did, however, say that he would insist on a robust public option. He then sold out on even that feeble protection against the for-profit health insurance industry. As a result, reasonable progressives can differ about Obamacare. As a health insurance reform bill, it instituted certain useful improvements, but it strengthened the role of the for-profit carriers.

It's just attacking a straw man to say that we insist on our leaders solving every problem within six months. Between such unrealistic perfectionism, on one hand, and blind "Obamabot" praise, on the other, there is actually a middle ground of supporting Obama against the right wing while still holding his feet to the fire when he sells out progressive approaches.