an infantile need to be hugged and patted on the head..........

[kpete]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/7/26/22117/2440

Booman:

(Progressive dissatisfaction with Democrats) is mainly a problem not of style but of an infantile need to be hugged and patted on the head on the part of a bunch of cry babies. But the cry babies are also an important constituency.....

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2010/7/27/13473/0911

[Better Today]

1. How is expecting Obama to do what he said he would do, a need for head patting etal

[CakeGrrl]

4. Sounds like you didn't read the article

He offered a theory about the "need for head-patting" being the reciprocation/positive result that people expected in exchange for giving their time and effort during the campaign.

People can hem and haw and be discontent all they want, but Booman made what should be an obvious point: Letting Republicans gain more seats in Congress sure as hell isn't going to advance progressive causes. All the doom and gloom will become self-fufilling if people want to sit on their hands.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Thanks for posting.

this is a very cogent point:

I hesitate to even say that because the Joe Liebermans of the world seem to make it their mission to find out what would make progressives happy and then make sure that it doesn't happen (remember Medicare expansion?).

Joe Leiberman, Ben Nelson and virtually all repukes.

[zipplewrath]

3. You found the worst quote to post

He is actually much more supportive of the progressives than your post suggests.

But still, he rests on the same strawmen that critics of the progressives always do.

* HCR was some sort of progressive accomplishment

* Obama actually would like to be more progressive, but congress holds him back

This last one is the basis of this claim:

"But he wants—and needs—a signal that the president cares about the people who’ve been fighting the good fight for years and may or may not continue doing so in the future."

He's begging the question here, a logical fallicy. There is little evidence that the president "cares" much less supports the "good fight" that people have been fighting. Quite to the opposite, he seems to dismiss much of their work and prefers to replace it with folks like Duncan, and Gates, and Petreaus. Goodness knows Code Pink isn't fighting the same fight that Obama is. HCR wasn't a progressive bill, and its results weren't progressive goals. Progressive goals had to do with universal health CARE. No one really cared whether the insurance companies survived or not. No progressive had been "fighting the good fight" for mandates or cadillac taxes, much less ensuring that Big Pharma held on to their major profits.

[vi5]

5. +1 on all counts

"Health Care Reform" was really little more than additional regulation of the insurance industry. Which is a laudible goal, but it's also going to be only as good as the bodies of enforcement put in place to monitor and address violations. And this administration does not have a good track record on that count.

[Better Today]

6. Well and truly said.