The Plum Line - Why the left is angry at Obama

Posted at 12:19 PM ET, 12/ 6/2010 Why the left is angry at Obama By Greg Sargent Dem Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has a real talent for crystallizing liberal anger at Obama into pithy phrases, has just released a statement opening fire on all the talk about a pending "deal" on the tax cuts. It gets at a key reason the left is ticked at Obama: "Governing is more than a series of transactions. This is a competition of ideas on how we make the country better." "Middle class Americans need someone to fight for them. They see this deal as punting on 3rd down -- it seems the President is not seeing the value of being on offense." "Democrats should welcome the chance to tell the American people what we will fight for. We should be standing up for the middle class and extending unemployment insurance for out-of-work Americans. If Republicans want to add to our deficit and defend the interests of billionaires, make them stand up in Congress and tell that to the public loud and clear." "Deals come after we fight for ideals -- let's do that first." This is an easy shot for Weiner to take, and it's worth recalling that House Dems punted on their own chance to put the GOP on the spot with a vote on the middle class tax cuts before the election. Still, Weiner is getting at a key point. Much of the debate about the left and Obama tends to focus on Obama's ideological tendencies -- on the question of whether he's too quick to trade away core liberal priorities because he's at bottom not ideologically in sync with progressives. But one of the key things that angers liberals has nothing to do with ideology. Rather, it's all about Obama's approach to negotiating. The argument is that Obama is too quick to signal that compromise, even at great cost, is his paramount goal. This weakens Dems in negotiations with Republicans and emboldens them to hold out for more than they otherwise might be able to secure. In other words, the case against Obama is not just about ideology. It's also that his approach is not as hard-headed and pragmatic as it could be. In fairness, if Obama wraps up a deal on the tax cuts quickly, and as a result is able to secure the time necessary to get DADT repealed before the end of the year, you could then argue that his approach turned out to be pretty pragmatic, after all. But that hasn't happened yet. What Weiner is saying is that there's no practical reason to signal a willingness to deal until you've put up a fight and forced the other side to defend itself. The left's gripe with Obama is as much about the President's sense of what's pragmatic as it is about ideology. By Greg Sargent | December 6, 2010; 12:19 PM ET Categories: 2010 elections, House Dems, gay rights, taxes

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