[update below] [2nd update below]
Paul Krugman links to an article on his blog by Bruce Bartlett for those who didn’t see it, so I’m linking in turn to Krugman for those who didn’t see him. Bartlett writes about “Obama’s effective conservatism.” I originally thought of Obama as a milquetoast liberal, though with possible progressive impulses. Now I think he’s a squishy centrist. But Bartlett, who is a moderate Republican (a dying breed), does in principle know how to recognize one of his own…
And to think that there are rightwingers out there—and with Harvard Ph.D.s to boot—who have written whole books on Obama being a socialist… 
UPDATE: A friend, who often has good insights into these matters, wrote the following in response to the post: “Obama is not that enigmatic. Obama is a center-left Democrat on the socio-economic role of state issues and a liberal on social issues. He is a kind of J.S. Mill rationalist who, at times, foolishly believes that his opponents mean [well] and can transcend their deep ideological convictions. That view is, in part, drive by his narcissistic conception of his own transcendence. Krugman does not take into account the degree of opposition Obama has to deal with!”
2nd UPDATE: On his NYT blog Krugman links to another piece by Bruce Bartlett, this one on Obama’s weak negotiating style. Bartlett chalks this up to Obama’s youth and inexperience, and notably to the fact that he did not come of age during a period when American presidents had to deal with two redoubtably tough negotiators, the Soviet Union and Big Labor. Bartlett observes that
One reason why Ronald Reagan was such a successful president is that he had been president of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for movie actors. Not only did this mean that he was the primary negotiator on labor contracts with the studios, but he was also deeply involved in opposing a serious effort by communists to infiltrate Hollywood and take control of its unions after the war.
Interesting perspective and worth reading.
Nope. Sorry, Arun, but your friend is mistaking Obama’s campaign promises for his actions. Your friend is wrong. And you would be surprised to see how deep the anger and frustration against Obama runs in progressive circles. And this anger runs even within the gay community, which is expected to be profoundly grateful to him for the DADT repeal. There is an enormous rift between moneyed liberals and real middle-class liberals who cannot afford cuts to Social Security the way President Hope and Change wants. The Third Way Dems with the likes of Evan Bayh and Penny Pritzker want to push the POTUS further and further right on economic issues. The people who actually gave their blood and sweat, toil and tears to get Obama elected and knocked on doors in the summer heat and canvassed neighborhoods as the weather got colder and braved hostility and outright anger have been betrayed.
If you want to know more about the battle against Obama to actually get DADT repealed, look here:
gay.americablog.com
Also check these links out:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/democratic_party/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/07/26/left
http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/07/07/social_security
Obama is supported in the US by a strong base of black people. White liberals support him because he is very personally likeable and because white liberals are terrified of a Bachmann presidency. But you’ll see that his support even within the black and white liberal communities is dropping.
If you read up on what was going on with the healthcare reform debate, you’d know that Obama appointed Max Baucus (D-MT) who’s in the pocket of the insurance industry to prepare the healthcare reform bill. You’ll also know that Obama appointed Jim messina, Baucus’ right hand man to be his Chief of Staff. Messina is now the head of Obama’s re-election campaign.
Contrary to Tea Party rhetoric, Obama is NOT a lefty. DADT got repealed DESPITE Obama’s prevaricating and conciliatory gestures to right-wing evangelicals, not because of him. It took a revolt from the gay blogosphere against HRC and other establishment gay groups as well as Nancy Pelosi to resurrect DADT repeal during the lame duck session in 2010. Obama wanted to pursue DADT repeal in 2011 knowing full well that the House Republicans would not let it through.
Obama is not a milquetoast. He’s just a guy who figured out that Wall Street has way bigger pockets than the average Joe liberal. And sure Wall Street has been strongly supporting him since the early 2000s. But this time, they got in deeper.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275
I know that it’s very fashionable among liberal academics and other financially prosperous liberals to throw scorn at the liberal blogosphere and dismiss them as angry ranters in their pajamas.
But please check out Firedoglake.com, dailykos.com and Americablog.com. You won’t find a lot of people there who’re thrilled that Obama is POTUS, and they have tremendous amounts of evidence to show that our POTUS is not a liberal but a center-right closeted Republican.
a comment from the NYT that sums it up well. The comment was left in response to this article:
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/opinion/28coates.html
HPLeftBrooklyn, New YorkJuly 28th, 20119:53 am
“I see it differently. To me, Obama’s a narcissist slavishly following the Clintonian model for re-election. It’s all about him, his legacy, his re-election. Having botched health care reform by heeding Rahm Emanuel’s advice that he get a deal at all costs, Obama helped push through a deal that satisfied neither political Left nor Right – but was instrumental in Democrats losing the House of Representatives in 2010.
Having seen his great initiative repudiated by the electorate, Obama now attempts to re-create himself as a fiscal centrist – despite the fact that his half-hearted stimulus of 2009, a stimulus that squandered hundreds of billions on tax cuts, hadn’t generated nearly enough jobs to compensate for the cutbacks now taking place on the State and municipal levels. Rather than forcefully challenge the electorate’s utterly manipulated perceptions about spending, he abandons the unemployed, and the case for either additional stimulus or a truly transformational jobs initiative – thus guaranteeing that America will be unable to grow its way of its fiscal woes any time soon.
When critics on the Left disagree with his choices, he paints us as petulant children. If only we understood the political realities as does the great leader. But could it be equally true that Obama is tantamount to the kept woman of entrenched financial interests, as embodied by his Lieutenant Timothy Geithner? Why isn’t there a Robert Reich, Joe Stiglitz or Paul Krugman spearheading economic policy in a struggling Obama Administration? Why all these made men of the well-fed, complacent Middle, men who were as enmeshed in the chicanery that led to the 2008 financial crisis as anyone on the Right?
What President Obama needs to understand is that we here on the Left don’t care about his Presidency. We care about our lives. We may have no choice but to vote for him in November 2012. But make no mistake, ggiven his performance so far, we’re likely to be holding our nose.”