This is a short diary, and a lot of you may not like it. Sue me.
Let me cut to the point: I have seen our hand-wringing before, and to be perfectly honest, we get it wrong a lot. We just do. And I'm not inclined to listen to the kvetching now.
I remember the primaries.
I remember what it was like here and everywhere in the progressive blogosphere when Obama lost Ohio and Texas. Oh, God, do I remember. The hand-wringing and the cries of "he's losing it!" were inescapable. You couldn't walk into a thread without someone carrying on about how it was all over. He blew it. He had blown it. It was game over, man, game over.
You couldn't find refuge from the storm of voices saying that Obama had completely blown it with Jeremiah Wright, or with miscalculation on Pennsylvania, or with guns and bitter clinging. How every "negative" endorsement was a slice of death to the Obama campaign. Every day in many ways there was always a choir of voices claiming that he had, pardon me, completely shit the bed on this one. The hunt for the Edwards endorsement. Oh, Christ, that was a doozy. He was screwing it up big time there, my friend, just you watch! Hillary was going to get Edwards' precious endorsement and then it was -- say it with me -- game over, man, game over!
The goddamned race for the Edwards endorsement. Think about how ridiculous that all seems now. Now, only a little more than a year later.
If I had a nickel for everytime that I read a comment here during those days starting with "Obama should..." followed by some primary battle advice, I'd be a very rich man.
I remember how everyone wailed and moaned over Saddleback and over Bill Ayers and over all the huge mistakes Obama made. Good god, it makes my head hurt with all the armchair quarterbacking done here (me included), and how gloriously wrong all the nay-saying was.
To believe what is read here, Obama had serious missteps every week right up to the point he won the nomination. And to read it, Obama then had serious missteps every week until he won the election.
And, of course, Obama has blown it every day since inauguration. Frankly, you can forget eight years, or even four. Because Obama's chances at accomplishing anything on health care or any other issue and winning re-election is done. The first eight months sealed his fate, and health care's. Across the board it's game over, man. Game over.
Well. I hope there are enough people who will be like-minded enough to agree when I say that you handwringers will excuse me if I don't truck with a lot of the predictions I am seeing about how health care has failed and this is failing and that is failing and how Obama blew it, and how this is a one-term Presidency. And all the other predictions of doom.
Because I have seen it before.
And I am more than a little skeptical about the veracity of the Cassandra cries of the hair-pulling, hand-wringing blog commenters I read every day.
Weigh the records of what the President has accomplished in two years and the mountain of doomsaying predictions of his imminent demise, and I know how the scales tilt.
I have the President's back.
The President told me that he would be an imperfect President, and he was right. He told me that he would need help in making change, and on that he is damned right. Change doesn't come easy, he warned. You remember the words:
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant. We've been asked to pause for a reality check.
And he was right. Did anyone seriously think those voices would stop on the day of the nomination, or on election day, or on inauguration day? The President didn't. But some of you seem to have given up and conceded.
I hate that. I hate that kind of blame and hand-wringing and all the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments that comes with being a modern-day Democrat. I hate the surrender, the defeatism.
This President (and like-minded Congresspeople) need to know we have their backs.
Stop whining, for God's sake. It drives the narrative and it feeds the opposition.
Backbone, friend. Sticktoitiveness.
This isn't over. Not by a long shot.
Call. Write. Make your voice heard.
Because you have been wrong before. Many, many times.
Work to be wrong again.
Update: Ugh. To be clear: I am not talking about the Kossacks who see a tough battle ahead and go out and do the very kind of heavy lifting Obama said we would all have to do, people like slinkerwink and nyceve and others here. I am talking about the non-fighters, the people who actually undercut the fighting spirit with nonsense about planning a primary challenge to Obama, and who decry this a failed one-term presidency.
Those people are worse than enemies, because your enemies invigorate you. Your enemies are mirrors showing you exactly where you stand by comparison. I would rather face 1000 Chuck Grassleys and lunatics with guns at rallies and signs that have incredibly misinformed slogans, because when they stand apart from me, it shows me I am not them.
But an "ally" who claims to be a progressive or whatever and starts braying about one-term presidencies and whatever other similar nonsense is worse than a political enemy because that person undermines the morale.
I'd rather be told by an opponent, "There is no way you are ever going to win," because that gets me fired up. But if a "friend" puts his arm around me and says that, it kills my morale.
Well, excuse me, fuck that. The last thing we need is some morale-sucking "ally". Take it to RedState.
Update 2: I love Chris Bowers at Open Left to death, but if he thinks this diary is vaguely calling out people, he's not reading either this site or my diary carefully enough. I am calling out those commenters on this site who post comments seriously suggesting that its time to consider mounting a primary challenge to Obama, those who start shouting -- almost with glee -- that this is rapidly becoming a one-term presidency, those who complain about how this Administration has failed on health care reform when the game is not quite over. And their ilk. Is that the majority of folks here? Of course not. Is it a growing and noticeable chorus? You are goddamned right it is. And judging by the comments below, a lot of people agree.