There was a piece in the Times yesterday by Ishmael Reed castigating unnamed "progressives" for being too demanding of President Obama. Actually the piece was more about Mr. Reed as a life-long victim of white progressives than it was about Obama, but Reed is definitely on-topic and tapping into the Talking Points on this one. 



The tiny Democratic revolt last week against the President's ready acquiescence on extending the Bush Tax Cuts has certainly reaped a whirlwind.  But instead of focusing on the unreasonableness of Republican demands, and the audacity of their threats to cripple government if they don't get exactly what they want, it's "progressives" who are getting bashed on both sides.

Yeah, it's not the openly obstructive GOP holding the nation hostage that's the problem, it's "progressives". 

I use the quotes there because "progressive" has become the political bugaboo of the season.  Like "liberal" and "socialist" before it, it's becoming little more than a slur.  If people as diverse as Glenn Beck, Ishmael Reed, and President Obama have their way, "progressive" will soon be a dirty word that stands for the apparently unpopular belief that we have a right to expect and demand that a government for and of the people provide solutions for our most pressing collective problems.

Glenn Beck has been trying in poignant earnest to turn "progressive" into a dirty word for some time.  Given the root word's optimism and obvious place at the core of the Western tradition, it seemed he had his work cut out.  But it looks like Beck's finally making, er, progress, for lack of a better word. 

Reed seems to use it as code for rich white liberals who have no real idea about the struggles and sufferings of the minorities that Obama worked with in his stint as a community organizer. Somehow, Reed suggests, these "progressives" are undermining poor minorities (Obama's "real" base, Reed implies) by coming out against the extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent.

I knew Ishmael Reed had an interest in voodoo.  But voodoo economics?  Who knew?

One thing's becoming clear as we head back into campaign mode.  It's all-out war.  On "Progressives".  And Obama is leading the charge.

I'm not the only one to notice that you never see the President as fierce in his advocacy as he is when advocating for the GOP.  There is something in the man that wants to rebel against expectations for him that he himself set.  Some of that is to be expected.  He tapped into something he realized could not be tamed.  But the degree to which the man who peddled epic Hope and Change now sneers and chides those who want it — there's something almost indecent about it.  I mean, he seemingly never tires of lecturing those who fell hardest for him about their naivete and credulity.  He points to them now as an example of what we mustn't become.  It's classic mean-girl stuff.

OK, it's partly political theater, too.  Obama obviously believes that his reelection will hinge on his ability to convince swing voters in a couple of battle states that he is a Democrat in name only.  The question is whether he is willing to become a Democrat in name only in order to prove it to them.

If the tax debate is any indication, it doesn't look good.  The contrast between his not just conciliatory but solicitous stance toward Republicans and his hysterical threats and indignant denunciations of his own party have never been as stark as they were during these negotiations.  Obama's deal with the nation's captors will add $900 billion to the deficit.  That's nearly a trillion dollars more than anyone wants to spend on a reelection campaign.

But it's not just the deficit that's at issue here.  The Republicans, who have used irrational hatred of Obama as their platform, have been gloating obstructionists, openly and matter-of-factly outlining their simple plan to destroy his presidency.  Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has said publicly, with a wan, sickening smile, that that's pretty much the whole of their agenda.

The extension of the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest does what not closing Guantanamo did for Obama, what not ending the wars (merely ciphening off payments to mercenaries) did.  It made them Obama's.  The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?  They're Obama's now.  And that's the idea.  You don't win elections by appealing to the poor huddled masses.

Except when you do.

Hmm.

The sad thing about the tax negotiations is that those who supported Obama got a bitter taste of the caricature his enemies have claimed he was all along.  He was petulant, snide, downright Bush-like in his contempt for those who disagreed with him on principle while caving completely to those utterly without principle.

Warning signs of a one-term wonder?  There's been talk of a primary challenge.  But that would only happen in a nation that still believed in hope and change, not the nation of bait-and-switch we've become.