The attack by the Obama Administration through its official spokesperson Robert Gibbs, on “the professional Left,” has deep significance for those who have up until now maintained that Obama really was a progressive who would eventually reveal his true progressive colors. That perspective seems less plausible now after Gibbs denounced as crazy and needing to be “drug tested” those who have compared the Obama Administration’s war policies (particularly the escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan), his capitulation to the corporate powers and the banks, and his attempt to prosecute those who revealed on WikiLeaks war crimes while refusing to prosecute those engaged in those war crimes and torture, to the Bush Administration. Congressman Keith Ellison called on Gibbs to resign in light of his attack on progressives. But as Lawrence Lessig points out, it is Obama, not Gibbs, to whom criticism is due. Lessig focuses on why progressives are right to be critical of Obama, not for failing to be a progressive, but for failing to take seriously the specific statements he made during his campaign which Lessig lists. We might also add that it is simply impossible to give credence to the notion that Gibbs, whose sole function is to be the official White House spokesperson, and who repeated his points later in the week, would be doing so without a full discussion of the points with Obama himself and his other key advisors.
We at Tikkun thought it would be useful to chronicle some of the discussion that began in mid-August 2010.
8/12/10 Huffington Post
by Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has been slapped around silly by commentator after commentator, decrying his anti-Lefty rage. But as I read the battle, it seems to miss a pretty fundamental point:
It's certainly not fair to criticize Obama for not being a Lefty. He wasn't ever a Lefty. He didn't promise to be a Lefty. And there's no reason to expect that he would ever become a Lefty.
But Lefties (like me) who criticize Obama are not criticizing him for failing our Lefty test. Our criticism is that Obama is failing the Obama test: that he is not delivering the presidency that he promised.
When Candidate Obama took on Hillary Clinton, he was quite clear about what he thought about the way Washington works. And he was quite clear about why he was running for President. As he said:
[U]nless we're willing to challenge the broken system in Washington, and stop letting lobbyists use their clout to get their way, nothing else is going to change. And the reason I'm running for president is to challenge that system.
Read it again: "The reason I am running for president is to challenge that system."
Or again:
[I]f we do not change our politics -- if we do not fundamentally change the way Washington works -- then the problems we've been talking about for the last generation will be the same ones that haunt us for generations to come.
Or again:
But let me be clear -- this isn't just about ending the failed policies of the Bush years; it's about ending the failed system in Washington that produces those policies. For far too long, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, Washington has allowed Wall Street to use lobbyists and campaign contributions to rig the system and get its way, no matter what it costs ordinary Americans.
Or again, as he asked, again and again:
Do we continue to allow lobbyists to veto our progress? Or do we finally put our national interests ahead of the special interests and address the concerns people feel over their jobs, their health care and their children's future?
Or again, as he explained:
We are up against the belief that it's OK for lobbyists to dominate our government -- that they are just part of the system in Washington. But we know that the undue influence of lobbyists is part of the problem, and this election is our chance to say that we're not going to let them stand in our way anymore.
Or perhaps put best:
We need to challenge the system... And if we're not willing to take up that fight, then real change -- change that will make a lasting difference in the lives of ordinary Americans -- will keep getting blocked by the defenders of the status quo.
Once Obama clinched the nomination, however, his rhetoric changed. And as he came to office, his focus, as a senior administration official explained, was to clean up the Executive, and leave to Congress the problem of cleaning up Congress (begging the obvious question: Does the president believe the problem with Washington is the presidency, and not Congress?)
Since coming to power, Obama has pushed just one piece of legislation that would have any effect at all on the power of lobbyists over Congress. That bill has not passed, and even if it had, it would have changed nothing in the lobbyists' power. He has not even indicated that he would support the only substantial reform of lobbyists power with support in Congress today -- the Fair Elections Now Act. Indeed, "congressional reform" doesn't even merit a mention on the "Additional Issues" page of whitehouse.gov (though "sportsmen" does).
Obama's strategy as president has not been to "change the way Washington works." Rather, he has pushed reforms in the same old way, with the same old games. As Glenn Greenwald put it, speaking of health care:
The way this bill has been shaped is the ultimate expression -- and bolstering -- of how Washington has long worked. One can find reasonable excuses for why it had to be done that way, but one cannot reasonably deny that it was.
Now I'm not sure whether it is leftist, or rightist, or centerist to govern through special interest deals. It certainly is Clintonist. It's precisely the administration that Hillary "lobbyists are people, too" Clinton promised. And were she president, and had she done exactly what Obama has done, then no one, I included, would have any reason to criticize her.
But beefed up Clintonism is not what Obama promised. He promised to "take up the fight." His failure to deliver on that critical promise -- the promise that distinguished him from his main primary rival -- or even to try, is a failure that everyone, Lefties included, should be free to complain about without suffering the rage of Gibbs.
08/10/10 The Hill Newspaper:
The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.
During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”
The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”
Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”
The White House, constantly under fire from expected enemies on the right, has been frustrated by nightly attacks on cable news shows catering to the left, where Obama and top lieutenants like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have been excoriated for abandoning the public option in healthcare reform; for not moving faster to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay; and for failing, so far, to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military.
Liberals have criticized Obama and his staff for moving to the middle and bargaining on healthcare reform, as well as the financial regulatory overhaul and even the $787 billion economic stimulus package, which some liberals said should have been larger.
Just last week, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow described Obama political adviser David Axelrod as a “human pretzel” for his explanation of the administration’s position on gay marriage. Axelrod had explained that Obama opposes same-sex marriage but favors equal benefits for partners in gay relationships.
Attacks from liberal political groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which raises money for liberal candidates and causes, are also frustrating to the White House.
Adam Green, one of PCCC’s founders, repeatedly blasted Obama for a “loser mentality” during the healthcare debate, criticizing the president and Emanuel for not trying harder to include the public option in the final healthcare legislation. The group even ran ads accusing Obama of ignoring the will of the millions who voted for him by courting the support of Republican Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe.
PCCC is now pressing Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren, a hero to the left, as the first head of the new consumer protection office created by the Wall Street reform bill.
While visibly frustrated, Gibbs did not specifically name any of the White Houses’s liberal detractors by name.
Green said in an e-mailed statement Monday afternoon, “When Republicans opposed the stimulus and when Joe Lieberman opposed the overwhelmingly popular public option, the president could have barnstormed across their states and demanded they support policies that their constituents wanted — but instead he caved without a fight,” Green said.
Gibbs’s tough comments reflect frustration and some bafflement from the White House, which believes it has done a lot for the left.
In just over 18 months in office, Obama has passed healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform and fair-pay legislation for women, among other bills near and dear to liberals.
Obama is also overseeing the end of the Iraq war, with the U.S. on schedule to end its combat operations by the end of this month.
He’s also added diversity to the Supreme Court by nominating two female justices, including the court’s first Hispanic. Yet some liberal groups have criticized his nominees for not being liberal enough.
“There’s 101 things we’ve done,” said Gibbs, who then mentioned both Iraq and healthcare.
Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.
Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished in a shattered economy with uniform Republican opposition and a short amount of time.
Huffington Post
By Sam Stein
The administration has argued before that the progressive base is composed of daydreaming idealists with little idea of how government really works. But in each case, there was a compelling reason for the remarks. Senior adviser David Axelrod called Howard Dean "insane" last December after the former DNC chairman said health care reform should be scrapped with the public option and its various incarnations removed.
When anonymous administration officials said Big Labor flushed money down the toilet by backing Lt. Gov. Bill Halter's primary challenge against Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), it was driven both by the belief that those funds should have been used to protect endangered incumbents and by anger over the treatment the administration was getting from progressive backers at a nearby gathering.
"Folks are just tired," a White House aide said at the time, when asked to explain the anonymous criticism. "Especially with the [Campaign for America's Future conference] in town this week."
When Gibbs sat down with The Hill on Friday for this most recent interview, there was no obvious irritant that would have driven him to take swipes at the "professional left." He just took them.
"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," the press secretary said. "I mean, it's crazy."
"They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon," he added. "That's not reality."
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The substance of the remarks was easy to dismiss. Obama himself has repeatedly touted the benefits of Canada-like single-payer health care, both as a senator and as president. Moreover, it would be hard to find even one prominent Democratic or progressive group in Washington that wants to eliminate the Pentagon. And, indeed, hours after the interview was published, Gibbs emailed a statement walking back the inartful remark and urging reconciliation within the Democratic tent.
But he didn't explain in depth why he made the remarks. Nor did Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton when he delivered the daily briefing in Gibbs' place later in the day.
Absent an answer, a number of theories have been proffered. There is, for starters, the growing and increasingly hostile relationship between the White House and cable news. When Gibbs said in his explanatory statement that he watched "too much cable," he meant it literally. Shortly before he sat down Friday afternoon with The Hill's Sam Youngman, a segment aired on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan show (ostensibly a friendlier network to the president) in which the state-aid package that Congress was considering was deemed a bailout for the teacher unions.
"Day after day, it gets frustrating," Gibbs said, in a statement that a White House aide said was written with sincerity. "Yesterday, I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout -- but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about."
That's one element of the frustration the White House feels. There are others as well, including the belief that it's not fair to criticize Obama for pushing an individual mandate for health insurance coverage when, during the campaign, he was criticized for not having a mandate in his plan at all. But these anecdotes are mere sparks that contributed to the fractious relationship between the White House and professional progressives rather than persuasive explanations for why the relationship became fractious in the first place.
A more conspiratorial argument is that the administration doesn't seem to necessarily mind the perception that it's at odds with its base. One top Republican strategist suggested that the comments were deliberate and intended to squelch the notion that the White House is staffed with socialist schemers. Because Obama was never overly dependent on the netroots or labor community to help him get elected, his aides may indeed be more willing to cross those people than cater to them.
But the most persuasive explanation may be that Gibbs' comments aren't unique at all. They are a feature of many establishment Democratic politicians such as the Clinton White House, which saw virtue in centrism and triangulation. As another example, the Democratic campaign committees have pushed for moderate, socially conservative Democrats to run in difficult districts over the last decade. And there was Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, which accepted its frosty relationship with the netroots as a fait accompli and even privately lashed out at MoveOn.org.
Republicans run to their base, the logic goes. Democrats run from it.
Obama overcame the skepticism of the "professional left" during the campaign by inspiring its members. Once he got to the nitty-gritty of governance, however, that ability to inspire dwindled and the more natural relationship -- mutual distrust -- took over.
"The 'professional left' never asked Obama for the impossible," said Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, "just for what was promised during the campaign. Political realities may have forced him to under-deliver, but under-deliver he did, oftentimes in ugly fashion as we watched a broken Senate take good legislation and water it down to near-irrelevancy. Meanwhile, the White House was always there, enabling the obstructionism of the Joe Liebermans and Max Baucuses of the caucus. So what's left? Obama may remain popular, but there is a real intensity gap that threatens Democratic congressional majorities this fall. That has nothing to do with the 'professional left', and everything to do with the broader base.
8/12/10
Speaking publicly for the first time since he disparaged the "professional left," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he stands by his comments, has no plans to resign and that he fully expects progressive voters to go to the polls in 2010.
"I don't plan on leaving and there is no truth to the rumor that I've added an inflatable exit to my office," the press secretary said during Wednesday's briefing, referencing the recent incident in which a Jet Blue flight attendant bolted his plane in frustration.
Taking the podium after a day off to tend to a sore throat, Gibbs said he has not reached out to any Democrats to discuss his remarks, in which he chastised liberals for wanting to "eliminate the Pentagon" and pursue Canadian-style health care reform. Nor, he added, has he talked to the president about the matter.
Does he stand by the comments? "Yes," he replied.
It was suggested that the remarks may have been part of a cynical strategy to depict the White House as not beholden to the progressive base. But the press secretary insisted that there was nothing underhanded in his interview with The Hill. He had said what he said in a bout of frustration.
"There are many time when I read the transcripts... that I could have said things slightly differently. I watch lot of cable TV and you don't have to watch long to get frustrated by some of what's said."
As for remorse, however, little was offered. Gibbs noted that the president has achieved many of the objectives that he had pledged on the campaign trail, insinuating that he isn't getting enough credit for these accomplishments. The frustration came from there but the sentiments aren't wholly unique.
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"I doubt I said anything you haven't already heard before," said Gibbs.
The press secretary did not name names when pressed as to whom he was targeting with his criticism. The professional left was defined by Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton as primarily cable news pundits. But no one on the TV circuit, let alone in public office, has called for the Pentagon to be eliminated. Gibbs hinted, briefly, that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) had done as much on the presidential campaign trail, only to have CBS's Chip Reid correct him. Kucinich had promoted a Department of Peace.
A day after the controversy over Gibbs' remarks was seemingly been put to rest by a quick walk-back from the press secretary, Wednesday's briefing seems likely to reignite the debate over the White House's relationship with liberals. But if there was nervousness over base voters not heading to the polls, Gibbs didn't show it:
"I don't think [liberal voters won't show up]," he said, "because I think what's at stake in November is too important to do that."
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