Liberals buzz over brutal takedown of Obama byByron YorkFollow on Twitter:@byronyork
"What Happened to Obama?" asks Drew Westen (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)In a new sign of President Obama's troubles with his Democratic base, liberal bloggers and activists are buzzing over a new essay that is profoundly critical of Obama's supposed betrayal of liberal ideals.

The article is "What Happened to Obama?" by Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen. Writing in Sunday's New York Times, Westen argues that Obama's "deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics" -- by that, Westen means the political tactics of the Republican party -- have resulted not just in Obama's failing to achieve economic recovery and significant reforms but in his setting back the cause of recovery and reform for "at least a generation."

Like many liberals, Westen wants Obama to fight every moment of every day against what Westen views as the evils of the modern Republican party. For Westen, disillusionment began on Inauguration Day, when Westen hoped Obama would use his first speech as president to "tell [Americans] a story that made sense of what they had just been through." Westen wanted to hear Obama attack the "greed" and "recklessness" of "conservative extremists" and "Wall Street gamblers" who nearly destroyed the economy. Westen wanted Obama to declare war on the bad guys. Instead, Obama's inaugural address was entirely unremarkable; he didn't say much of anything. "There was no story," Westen writes, "and there has been none since."

Worse was to come. Westen wanted Obama, once in office, to kick Republican butt all over Washington. He longed to hear Obama say that voters had elected Democrats "to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement." But instead of keeping Republicans under his heel, Obama negotiated with them. The "truly decisive move" that showed Obama to be a failure, Westen writes, was the president's decision to settle for an $800 billion economic stimulus bill that was far smaller than many liberals wanted. Accepting a "half stimulus" instead of pushing for an even larger FDR-like program was a dismaying sign of "the tic-like gestures of compromise that have become the hallmark of [Obama's] presidency."

Other disappointing half-measures followed: health care reform, financial reform, the deficit agreement. Now, two and a half years into Obama's term, Westen has fallen into nearly complete despair: "Like most Americans, at this point," he writes, "I have no idea what Barack Obama -- and by extension the party he leads -- believes on virtually any issue."

Why has Obama been such a disappointment? Westen comes up with a few theories that sound strikingly familiar to Obama's critics on the right. Perhaps Obama "is simply not up to the task" of being president. Perhaps the Democrats who were so dazzled by his campaign speeches should have noticed "some disquieting aspects of his biography." Among those disquieting aspects: "that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted 'present' (instead of 'yea' or 'nay') 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues." Go to any conservative blog, and you'll find many similar critiques, dating to well before the 2008 election.

There's just one thing missing from Westen's indictment. If Obama has been such a profound disappointment, such a profound failure, why hasn't someone in the liberal wing of the Democratic party launched a primary challenge against him? Westen doesn't even mention the possibility.

Recently the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto observed that if Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2008 instead of Obama, "lefties would be urging Obama to challenge her in the primaries." But so far, Obama has been primary-proof, and that seems unlikely to change. Liberals may be deeply disappointed, and even driven to despair, by Obama's performance in office, but no one seems inclined do anything about it.
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