Roll Call newspaper tells Beltway about "Grumble About Obama Day"

Yesterday, DC newspaper Roll Call featured an item titled "Lefty Births Obama Gripefest," in advance of May 2nd, "Grumble About Obama Day."

Whenever one is quoted and, especially, paraphrased in the press, there's always a good chance that what one said/meant doesn't quite come through, especially when irony is at play. I've annotated the article, below, to clarify my intent:

A catharsis-seeking blogger at “Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy” is so fed up with President Barack Obama’s tack to the center that he’s hoping other disaffected Democrats will digitally dog-pile on POTUS during “Grumble About Obama Day.”

The nonbinding, virtual venting session — “It’s this one, no-fault day,” Vast Left explained — has been set for May 2. The only requirement is letting “44” know just how disappointed liberals are in what the blogger characterizes as the administration’s total about-face on progressive policies.

In case it's not fully clear, the "digital dog-pile" catharsis idea is ironic, though I would love to see other satirists join in the fun on and around 5/2/12.

The point is to call out how deliberately inactionable progressives' shallow-end complaints about Obama actually are. If they weren't content to be a party to his countless dreadful conservative policies, they'd have taken an interest in primary challenges or would be open to a left third-party option.

I eschew the term "center," except with a caveat like "so-called." Today's "centrist" policies are what any reasonable person would call rightwing, and Obama has always been there, though he has indeed been more aggressively conservative than even I'd expected.

Our Reagan-admiring Democratic president, whose platform included (for example) expanding both the war in Afghanistan and faith-based initiatives, has long opposed countless progressive policies. That said, there are some issues where he did once talk the left-liberal talk and has done a 180° turn.

In speaking with Roll Call's Heard on the Hill columnist Warren Rojas, I left out a very important requirement for observing the event. On Grumble About Obama Day, one should not—I repeat, not—wear a 2L4O: Too Left for Obama or Too Liberal for Obama T-shirt. Unlike the shirts, GAOD is tailor-made for protest you don't really believe in.

“CHANGE turned out to be … reaching across the aisle to this party we were already sick of,” the self-proclaimed lifelong Democrat told HOH.

Re-electing Obama, Vast Left fears, would only cement the raft of “terrible, conservative, cruel” initiatives instituted in his first term, including what he considers to be untenable overreaches on the so-called global war on terror, the eradication of core civil rights and abandonment of fiscal responsibility.

I was a "lifelong Democrat" until Obama's untimely conservatism caused me to rethink my commitment to the party. The more I opened my eyes about it, the more I saw the Democrats (like their support systems in the "professional left") as a Roach Motel for progressive energies.

I wouldn't say I "fear" such things would happen in a second Obama term, I see them as an inevitability in the next four years under either Obama or Romney, barring some unforeseen social/structural change.

I don't believe I'd have used the term "civil rights" in this context, but in any case "civil liberties" is the canonical term for the First Amendment and related rights Obama has shredded at a rate that challenges Bush's.

As for "fiscal responsibility," I can't imagine what I'd have said that sounded much like that. Unlike Obama and his bipartisan colleagues, I'm in no way a deficit hawk, certainly not during a severe economic downturn.

Those not yet ready to jump ship can at least shake their electronic fists next week but should prepare to hold their noses come November.

“I think my days of standing in solidarity with a single party are done,” Vast Left said, hinting that supporting third-party candidates might be the way to go in the future.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I'm not advocating a hold-your-nose vote for Obama or any Democrat. My vote in November will be for a left third-party candidate or a write-in, perhaps for "None of the above."