Liberal rant

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, gave an interview where he basically bashed liberals as whiny and NS (never satisfied): "I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it's crazy."  He then went on to say that folks like me won't be happy until Dennis Kucinich is in the White House.

I think Gibbs, and by extension, I suppose, Obama, is misreading liberal discontent.  Yes, I kinda like the health care reform act, and I think we're better off with FinReg passing than it not, but what I don't feel is that Obama used the bully pulpit of the presidency to bring about any meaningful change, which is, you might remember, what his campaign was all about: Obama seems to shy away from a fight.  Indeed, you need to look no further than his mealy address following the BP oil spill, or his downright bizarre pronouncements on gay marriage, to get the impression of someone who's not willing to come out punching.  If the problem is that the Senate is just saying no to everything, then you need to actually make that an issue to put pressure on the obstructing Senators who reside in blue or blueish states (Snowe, Collins, Grassley, Brown, etc.) and maybe also have an effect on current Senate races (i.e. Castle in Delaware).  Go debate Mitch McConnell, or watch him back out and call him unable to stand behind his non-existent ideas. 

Put another way, liberals (well, I) feel like Obama hasn't put any skin into the game, and now lots of Democrats are going to lose their seats this fall.  Certainly, most of that has to do with the economy -- but liberals were saying at the time that the stimulus was too small!  And yet Obama declared himself happy with the size of it!  I don't pretend to know what independents or swing voters or whatever you want to call them are thinking when they go to the polls in November, if they'll switch to the GOP, etc..  But I do think that many people who voted for Obama in 2008 will not go to the polls in 2010 because they feel that Obama has not fought for the change that he promised them.