Angry, Angry Left

Like many of us on the Left, I was outraged over the Obama-Republican tax compromise. Outraged! As he said in his news conference, defending the deal, a majority of the public was in favor of letting the tax cuts for the rich expire. President Obama himself was in favor of letting the tax cuts for the rich expire. After all, if we're serious about reducing the deficit, how could we give further breaks to people who don't need it?

But in order to extend the tax cuts to the middle class, in order to extend unemployment benefits, in order to secure a reduction in the payroll tax, he negotiated a two-year extension of the tax cuts for the rich.

My outraged has diminished. Besides, I never really get angry, let alone outraged. But visit Daily Kos or some of the other liberal blogs. By their portrayal of the President, you'd think Obama ordered water torture or started two wars. They treat him at best like a corporatist, uncaring about the nation's poor, and at worst like an imbecile, bamboozled by the Right.

Ah, but the more the Left yells, the more centrist President Obama appears; the more he appeals to independents. The more he negotiates with the Right, the less scary or radical he appears to the Obama's a Secret Kenyan Muslim Socialist Society.

I don't care who he's in a room with, President Obama is the smartest person in it.

* This site makes me happy.

** My dad comes home Thursday! Here he writes about getting ready to leave Kenya again.