“Ok, listen up you whiny single-issue-driven, can’t see the forest for the tree of your choosing bleaters out there,” warned a diarist last week on Dailykos.com, a popular liberal blog. “For fuck’s sake, Obama is doing an incredible job.”

The statement, which was in one of the most recommended posts of the day, was designed to dissuade the naysayers — those on the left who are willing to be critical of President Barack Obama — from continuing their oh-so-egregious practice of pressuring his Holiness on issues they care about.

The hyperbolic utterances only steamrolled from there:

“To review, Obama is stabilizing a crashing economy, salvaging the remains of an imploding banking system, taking control of and rebuilding the auto industry, organizing a withdrawal in Iraq, organizing counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan, making peace with Iran, hardening the resolve of Pakistan, reinventing our electrical paradigm, pushing climate change legislation, dealing with the repercussions of the Bush Administration’s war crimes, pushing for legislation on (gays in the military), undoing Bush Administration policies from abortion to the environment, lobbying for health care reform, wading into the (Israel-Palestine) struggle, and still hasn’t actually got his whole team online to do all this …”

These meanderings are so juvenile, and lacking of any actual evidence to back up his claims that to bother with an actual retort would be to waste precious time. But the blog post is, I think, a telling reflection of a disturbing trend of the last few months since Obama has taken office: the decline of critical thinking from some parts of the left.

During the eights years of George W. Bush, in which the crimes of our government were so apparent to people on virtually all ends of the left/liberal spectrum — be they center-left think tanks, progressive blogs, or radical activists and scholars — there was a high volume of rational investigations and commentary on the flaws of the government.

Since the election of Obama, however, many liberals now view critical commentary of government policies as some form of betrayal against Mr. Hope, rather than the basic function of an engaged and caring citizen. This could have a chilling effect on the level of “change” that might actually occur during the next four or eight years — mores the pity.

To give another example, consider the latest battle between the CIA and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding what she knew about torture and when. Assuming, charitably, the Pelosi is telling the truth, we still know one thing: Pelosi knew about waterboarding in 2003 and said nothing to oppose it.

And what is the reaction from liberal writers and pundits?  Was it shame and disgust? No, it is a knee-jerk defense against this Republican “sideshow” that is defaming the “courageous hero” Nancy Pelosi.

This is, of course, not monolithic. There are many writers on the left who continue to go after the President and his flawed policies, no matter to what Party he belongs.  

Glenn Greenwald, of Salon.com, may be the most active in this department. In just the last week he has critiqued the Democrats, Obama, or both a number of issues: civil liberties, detention policies, military commissions, the basic framework of Obama’s foreign policy and so on.

Jeremy Scahill, likewise, continues aggressively pursing Obama’s support of torture, the continued reliance on unaccountable private military contractors, Obama’s horrendous cabinet appointments and so on.

These writers — and others not mentioned here — have long been good at what they do, but with the decline of probing questions coming from many parts of the left, there work sticks out even more.

It will be vital in the coming years that progressive, liberals, Democrats and the like, continue to push Obama on key issues of which he often ignores the left, such as single-payer healthcare, shrinking the military budget, ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ending government spying programs, ending rendition and recognizing gay marriages.

Blind cheerleading for the President will come at a price. If Obama’s knows the left will support his agenda, regardless of what it is, then he has no answer to pay any attention to us at all.

As Howard Zinn wrote two years ago when liberals were backing a toothless Iraq war resolution, “When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.”

He adds, “We are citizens. Whatever politicians may do, let them first feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not for what is winnable, in a shamefully timorous Congress …

We are not politicians, but citizens. We have no office to hold on to, only our consciences, which insist on telling the truth. That, history suggests, is the most realistic thing a citizen can do.”

 

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