It appears that I unleashed a firestorm yesterday when I referred to our president in what I thought was a fairly innocuous, although admittedly snarky term of "whiner in chief". I've never been particularly offended by the word "whiner" and it didn't occur to me that so many other people might be. Who'd have thought?
In truth, my first instinct had been to go with "lamenter in chief", and then "sorrowful dad in chief", but neither of them quite had the same ring as "whiner in chief" so I'm afraid I went with the obvious. I'm lazy that way. If I had only stopped to think, I would have understood that the term was so perjorative and offensive that it would have kept the majority of people commenting negatively on my diary from actually addressing any of the points I made about President Obama's dearth of leadership and disappointing performance over the past three years. Clearly my lack of respect for the office overshadowed any nitpicking issues I could raise about his pathological need to negotiate away our Democratic values in the interest of displaying a bi-partisanship that only exists in his mind.
And of course there was the "so unsbustantive I'm not even going to comment on it" crowd and believe me I got their message. Calling out the president for allowing the Republicans to continually set the agenda and frame the debate is not the least bit substantive and deserves no rebuttal. In fact could there be anything more boring than stooping to engage with a lightweight thinker who wouldn't understand substance if you smacked her along side the head with it? I think not.
I am afraid I do have to take exception to some of the personal characterizations tossed my way. I would like to state unequivocally and in no uncertain terms that I am not a PUMA! Well, I would like to, but I'm not positive I can since I haven't the slightest idea what a PUMA is. However, apparently it's not good, so I feel confident in denying that I am one. I am also not a troll for the Rove/Koch brothers as a few of you asserted. I actually am a proud, card-carrying, bleeding-heart, Bernie Sanders supporting, commie pinko liberal, not a progressive, but a liberal. You know one of those people Rahm Emanuel was referring to when he said "F**k the liberals, where else are they going to go" early on in the Obama administration.
I now understand after reading the plethora or responses to my diary yesterday that the only president you're allowed to criticize or question on daily kos is a Republican one. It seems that it doesn't matter how many campaign promises our current president breaks, how often he turns over our lunch money to the Republican bullies, or how many times he fails to take a leadership role in shaping the agenda, it is treasonous to the Democratic cause to mention it out loud. It's doubly treasonous if you supported Hillary Clinton in the primary.
I am a chastened but wiser woman who will try to do better in the future. However I should probably warn you that if you were outraged by what I had to say in my diary yesterday, you'd be smart to avoid at all costs today's Leslie Bennetts article in Reader Supported News (rsn). You'll want to string her up.