Obama Criticized From the Left, Praised by the Right

 President-elect Obama is getting criticized from a group of voters and it isn’t the voters you would think. Sure there has been criticism from the right ( myself included naturally) but according to this article Barack Obama is facing his harshest criticism from the far left which is critical of several of Obama’s actions since becoming the president-elect.

Segments of Obama’s more radical supporters — mostly those who were quick to embrace the most liberal viable candidate — are not happy with his most recent political ploys. In their eyes, Lieberman betrayed the party by criticizing now President-elect Barack Obama and, even worse, by backing John McCain for president and speaking at the Republican Convention. And the possibility that Clinton will be added to the high level position of secretary of state is a far cry from Obama’s call for “Change.”

 Here are some of the comments made by some of the people referenced in the article linked to above:

There is a particular feeling of betrayal, as Jane Hamsher, editor of FireDogLake, exemplifies:

The Senate Democratic caucus don’t [sic] hate Lieberman, they hate you.  They hate you for having the temerity to think you could take down a sitting US Senator, or hold him accountable for his actions.

Take that, you…you…plebe.

Still, we do what we do.  The number of people who want Lieberman held to account grew exponentially during the 2008 election, and those who stood up to defend him might be surprised at how much political capital they expended in doing so.

 And from Chris ” I get a thrill up my leg” Matthews:

I don’t understand it. … Why would he pick her? I thought we were done with the Clintons. She’ll just use it to build her power base. It’s Machiavellian. And then we’ll have Bill Clinton, too. I thought Obama didn’t want drama. He’s already got [chief of staff Rahm] Emanuel and [transition team leader John] Podesta. He’ll have even more drama with her. She’s just a soap opera. If he doesn’t pick her, everyone will say she’s been dissed again, we’ll have to live through that again.

 And here are more:

One blogger, again at DailyKos, writing under the pseudonym “fatcatnichols,” was enraged by at the prospect of Hillary Clinton joining Obama’s administration.

It’s very painful for me to watch Obama, the person I was so inspired by, transform himself from a “clean break from the 1990’s” to the Bill Clinton freak show. This is not what I voted for.

Barack Obama has been completely overshadowed by the Clinton’s over the last few days. I hardly remember Obama’s landslide victory, subsequent mandate for Change, and his potential to give us a fresh start. I’m still hoping Obama doesn’t choose Hillary, but all indications are that he will … and I am just about to throw up.

Ian Welsh at FireDogLake notes the rising anti-Clinton sentiment:

[T]here are a lot of Progressives who won’t like [Clinton as Secretary of State] much, given Clinton’s record of supporting the Iraq war and voting for the stand alone resolution making Iran’s Republican Guards a terrorist organization, which made a part of the Iranian military “terrorists.”  Clinton was definitely more hawkish than Obama was during the primary season, and during her career. 

 The far left fears that the president-elect isn’t about to provide the change that he promised and they are on the attack. They chose the candidate who they felt was different from the others and they have watched him fill his staff with former Clinton staffers and they are not happy. Republicans seem to be much happier about the Clinton pick than the Democrats. They had feared a Bill Richardson or John Kerry pick.

 Meanwhile president-elect Obama is gaining praise from an unlikely source, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell expressed appreciation that Obama’s pick for White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, visited Capitol Hill this week to talk to Republicans ahead of the new Congress convening on January 6, two weeks before Obama is sworn in as president.

“I think the new administration is off to a good start,” the Kentucky senator said.

“They’re saying, in my view, all the right things … that they want to govern in the middle and tackle big things.”

 This has got to incense the far left also, the Republican senate leader saying that president-elect Obama is off to the right start has got to justify their negative feelings of what Obama has done so far.

 Barack Obama faces a tough challenge, the far left controls the Democrat party and Obama ran as a far leftist during the primary in order to secure the nomination. He was then able to hide what I believe are his true hard left policies during the general election in order to gain the support of the moderates. If he governs from the center as Mitch McConnell believes he will Obama risks losing the far left. However if Obama turns too far left he risks losing the moderates who broke for him and handed him the election. 

 The Republican leader claims that Obama is off to a good start, but if you ask the far left they would disagree. Somehow we have entered the bizarro world.