Liberals Exit Stage Left

By Alan Caruba

Granted that reading anything in the liberal media can be daunting for the sheer volume of infantile content it represents, but it can be instructive, particularly as regards the emergence of trends in Leftist opinions.

I am sure that liberals were delighted to read all the criticism conservatives directed at George W. Bush, but they seemed unaware that Bush43 was more frequently than not on their team. As the debate over modifying Medicare rages on, they forget that he expanded the program by adding prescription benefits to it. W never saw a spending bill he would not sign.

Now, however, liberals have their man in the Oval Office and have had two and a half years to assess his performance. They are increasingly unhappy.

Sunday’s Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll found that 24% of the nation’s voters “strongly approve” of Obama’s performance, but short of changing his party affiliation that is a near-constant level of approval. It just means that nearly one-in-four voters are too dumb to be allowed to use sharp instruments. I call it the Food Stamp Vote.

By contrast, “Nearly half of U.S. voters give President Obama poor marks for his handling of the economy,” noted Rasmussen and it is the economy that will dominate the 2012 elections even if he totally emptied the Strategic Oil Reserves.

I have long regarded Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist, as a barometer of what liberals are saying to each other. She’s the Ann Coulter of liberalism and almost as entertaining.

Her Sunday column was titled “Why Is He Bi? (Sigh)” and notes that Obama is “binary” and “likes to be on both sides at once.” After that she was off and running, citing how “In Afghanistan, he wants to go but he wants to stay” while “On Libya, President Obama wants to lead from behind. He’s engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi while telling Congress he’s not engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi.”

“On the budget, he wants to cut spending and increase spending.” Her column is well worth reading because, essentially, she skewers Obama in a fashion that only a former true believer could.

“With each equivocation, the man in the Oval Office shields his identity and cloaks who the real Barack Obama is,” chiding that “On some of the most important issues facing this nation, it is time for the president to come out of the closet.”

Conservatives know who the “real” Obama is. He’s a Marxist. He’s possibly a Muslim. He is incompetent, arrogant, and was ineligible to run for the presidency or hold the office.

If it was just Maureen Dowd voicing her doubts, it would not be a trend, but over at the Huffington Post, Arianna was having her own doubts about recent Obama decisions, noting that “This week brought two high-profile examples of what has become the president’s trademark approach to leadership—‘the fierce urgency of something later’—as he kicked the proverbial can down the road on Afghanistan and gay marriage.”

An apparent memory lapse regarding Libya caused Arianna to write “We know that it’s easier to start a war than to finish one…” It was Bush who first ventured into Afghanistan to drive out al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11 and then got distracted by Iraq. Even so, he was elected twice. Obama has taken to openly expressing doubt he will be a two-term president.

Meanwhile, over at the reliably liberal Washington Post, the lead story was “Obama’s focus on visiting clean-tech companies raises questions.” Well, yes, it does and it was nice of the Post to notice. By now we all know that Obama is besotted by solar panels, electric cars, and high-speed trains where none are needed.

All those “green jobs” he promised have failed to materialize, but neither have all the other jobs he promised two trillion dollars ago.

Could we be witnessing a slow inching off the stage by the Left? Having lost three governorships and power in the House to Republicans, liberals/Democrats may be having second thoughts about the Obamessiah. This is surely a trend worth watching.

© Alan Caruba, 2011