Time to cut the crap. Obama Derangement Syndrome doesn't really exist.

[Zorra]

358. I believe it. The problem we progressives have is that, when Obama said "make me do it"

we took him literally, and we try to push him do the things that most Democrats want him to do. However, there is a certain faction among Democrats who will go along with anything and everything that Obama does, without question, even if they really don't believe in their hearts that something that Obama does is the right thing to do.

In doing so, they take away some of the power of progressive Democrats to "make Obama do it". For instance, these Democrats caved on universal health care because Obama did it. These Democrats went along with the Bush tax cut for the wealthy because Obama did it. If Obama wants chained CPI, these Democrats will want it as well. If Obama wants to go to war like Bush did, these Democrats will want it as well. If Obama wants to appoint Pat Robertson to a high level cabinet post, these Democrats will want it as well. etc.

When Obama was on the fence about LGBT rights and equality, these Democrats were on the fence about LGBT equality. They told the LGBT community to STFU repeatedly. When Obama came out for LGBT rights, they came out for LGBT rights

These Democrats are selling us, and our country, down the river. Selling us out. Selling us out by not pushing for the things that really need to be done. Selling us out by insisting that we are deranged because we criticize the Ppresident and continue to push Obama for universal healthcare, taxing the rich effectively, LGBT rights, Democratic cabinet appointees rather than republican appointees, peace... When we progressives were screaming for a diplomatic solution to the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, pushing Obama for peace, we were told to STFU, because Obama was so much smarter than us. When Obama decided a diplomatic solution was best, these Democrats marveled at how wise Obama was for devising such a brilliant plan to gain a diplomatic resolution.

Houston, we have a problem.

How to Push Obama
By John Nichols, January 2009
snip---
The point won't be to teach Obama about single-payer. Less than six years ago, he told the Illinois AFLCIO: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody . . . a singlepayer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."

Since then, Democrats have taken back the House, the Senate, and the White House. The man who set those prerequisites in 2003 will sit in the Oval Office in 2009. But change didn't just come to Washington. It came to Barack Obama. His statements, his strategies, and his appointments evidence a caution born of the political and structural pressures faced by Presidential contenders and Presidents-elect. Whether the previous, more progressive Obama still exists within the man who will take the oath of office on January 20 remains to be seen. But the only way to determine if Obama really is the progressive he claimed as recently as last summer to be is to push not just Obama but the public.

Franklin Roosevelt's example is useful here. After his election in 1932, FDR met with Sidney Hillman and other labor leaders, many of them active Socialists with whom he had worked over the past decade or more. Hillman and his allies arrived with plans they wanted the new President to implement. Roosevelt told them: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."
snip---
It is equally reasonable for progressives to assume that Barack Obama wants to do the right thing. But it is necessary for progressives to understand that, as with Roosevelt, they will have to make Obama do it.

Tiger Beat.