Criticism From Left Getting To The White House

The White House slams the "professional left" in The Hill today:

The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

Obama "caved" to centrists?

He is a centrist.

Actually a center-rightist.

Take a look at the policies.

Public school privatization.

Has doubled down on the testing culture of NCLB by adding data tracking provisions to the Race to the Top competition that has states evaluating and paying teachers by test scores and adding tests to every subject in every grade to do so.

Health care "reform" law that mandates 31 million new customers for the HMO's, does not allow for drug importation from Canada (a giveaway to Big Pharma) but does pay for the plan with a 40% excise tax on people with employer-provided health care plans (many of whom are union members) and levy a 2.5% tax on uninsured people who don't buy insurance.

Financial "reform" that does nothing to regulate the derivatives market and still allows the big banks to do business like high rollers at a Vegas casino.

A financial bailout of those same bankers that made sure AIG's counterparties got 100 cents to the dollar for crap on their books worth ten or fifteen cents at most and continues to provide 0% interest loans to the banksters through the Federal Reserve.

Shrugged at AIG's executives paying themselves huge Christmas bonuses and taking trips to Arizona resorts for "meetings" with taxpayer money.

Renominated Ben Bernanke to the Fed.

Has assassination squads working Afghanistan to liquidate Taliban leaders (though the squads are just as likely to kill innocents as actual terrorists - the Times notes today that civilian casualties are up 30% since the beginning of the year in Afghanistan.)

Take a look at that list and tell me it couldn't be a list of George W. Bush accomplishments?

Seriously - even the health care "reform" law is just a larger version of the Bush drug law. They are both giveaways to the HMO and Big Pharma industries.

And the bailouts started under Bush and continued unabated under Obama. The only change to the program was to switch the acronym for it from TARP to TALF.

The Hill article goes on to say that the White House is frustrated that right wing opposition to the president has driven down his approval ratings and they feel like they ought to be able to catch a break from the liberal left.

Well, you know, if you want to catch a break from the left, maybe you ought to STOP VILIFYING LIBERAL CONSTITUENCIES LIKE TEACHERS and STOP SUCKING UP TO THE RIGHT WING and pursuing center-right corporate policies.

It's not personal, Mr. Gibbs.

It's just business.

Obama sucks.

You suck.

Rahm Emanuel - the man who suggested Sistah Souljahing teachers in 2010 and 2012 as a political strategy to appeal to moderates - sucks as well.

Stop sucking and we'll stop criticizing.

Keep sucking and we'll send you down to defeat in 2012.

POSTSCRIPT: I should add, unemployment is STILL at 9.5% and rather than address the problem with a jobs and stimulus program that actually, you know, puts people to work, we got jive like Race to the Top ($4.3 billion in stimulus funds) that FIRES teachers and principals.

I should also add that the administration insisted the money for the Medicaid aid and teacher jobs bill come from CUTS TO FOOD STAMPS rather than RttT - so almost $12 billion was sliced from the food stamp program. A family of three receiving food stamps will get $521 less a year.

On the plus side, Secretary Arne still gets his $4.3 billion dollar walking around money that gets him on shows like Morning Joe as a VERY IMPORTANT AND SERIOUS PERSON.

Two more ways the Obama administration sucks.

I count ten I have listed in this post.

Can you think of any more?

UPDATE: How could I forget about the HAMP program that made the foreclosure crisis WORSE, not better.

Glenn Greenwald adds to the list of Obama screw-ups and betrayals here.