A friend just sent this me and I see no lies…

[Jim Lane]

107. Second guessing is perfectly legitimate -- it's how we make progress.

As an old saying goes, if you're smart, you learn from your mistakes, but if you're even smarter you learn from other people's mistakes.

I have no doubt that Obama did it the way he thought best. Nevertheless, more than one commentator (including more than one DUer) has noted that he seems to have become more willing to be forceful of late. My guess is that he himself, being in a good position to judge, has concluded that if he had 2009 to do over, he'd do it differently.

I hope that all of this cycle's Democratic candidates have studied the Obama administration so as to repeat what worked and tweak or junk what didn't.

Anyway, consider the context of my post. The article excerpted in the OP charged that "a lot of self-described progressives are petulant children for whom no candidate will ever be good enough...." Disagreeing with that, cui bono wrote, "If we get Bernie in we will have someone who will fight to bring back the real values of the Democratic Party." In reply, Recursion said, "Nobody ever explains what that actually means in a concrete sense." I provided a few specific examples of how a Democratic President could fight for progressive values.

I voted for Obama over Clinton in the primary, volunteered and voted for him in the general election 2008, and voted for him again in 2012 despite my disagreements with him. I don't regret those choices. Whether you label Obama center-right or center-left, he's certainly better than batshit-crazy-right, which is what the Republicans are consistently offering these days. Nevertheless, progressives have made specific substantive criticisms of Obama for being too conservative. It's not just petulance, as charged in the OP.