Some of Obama's most vehement critics are from the left. Deeply mistrusting and cynical from decades of observing American politics, they are always inclined to assume the worst intentions from Obama's actions and words. Even if, under his watch, health care reform has gone further than ever before in history, those critics will simply say that he should have done more and put the needs of the American public by the wayside from the very beginning. Why do those miserable fools still observe politics if they expect that no good will come from it? More importantly, why do they seek to make the optimists miserable like they are?
What's so different between those on the extreme ends of the political spectrum? Not much. These left-wing critics are no better than the radical right-wing critics of Republican politicians. The latter may consider a Republican, who is already considered to be a conservative by the mainstream public, to not be conservative enough. The recent election in NY's 23rd congressional district is a prime example of how the right fringe showed its displeasure at the nomination of a moderate candidate: it nominated its own candidate because it didn't consider the GOP candidate to be "conservative enough".
By the way, they lost that election. Consider what would happen if these threats by purist Democrats to primary Blue Dogs and even President Obama himself were to come to fruition in 2010 and 2012. The media and the GOP would have a field day with the "Democratic Party is fractured" meme, and the GOP would almost certainly benefit electorally. Republicans could win back both the House and the Senate, and possibly even the White House, if the Democrats are disorganized and fighting amongst themselves. They'd create an even greater mess for the next Democratic president to clean up, and inevitably, his critics from his own party will claim he's not doing everything exactly to their liking.
The Democratic Party's inclusive, "big tent" philosophy naturally results in a base that is diverse in age, skin color, background, and experiences; it's a double-edged sword, and Democrats will always be somewhat handicapped by their diversity. The Party leadership must place great emphasis on the "common, shared human experiences" theme, because now the conservatives and the progressives are feeling absolutely no love for one another. Obama, naturally, is in the crossfire, receiving blows from both sides.
He is treated like a child in a family with two highly-demanding parents; I've been around families like this, especially within the Chinese community. You know how those families are. The parents force their children to practice their musical instruments for hours a day, and expect them to excel in academics. Straight-A report cards and top scores on standardized tests are not even cause for praise. Oh no, they must go above and beyond--win all the science and math fairs, skip grades, gain entrance into the most prestigious colleges in the nation (with full scholarships, no less). Obama's stuck in the same rut--he can't please his base, no matter how hard he tries. His critics say that all his accomplishments so far (and there are quite a few) are par for the course, and that any Democratic president would have achieved them; they claim he hasn't lived up to his slogan of "change we need". Never mind that he's ten months into his first term, and that his major promises are also the ones that take the longest to achieve.
Granted, most of these parents are products of their upbringings and environments; in China, for example, the competition is extremely fierce among secondary school students, because China has too many students and too little space in colleges and universities. The parents, if they were immigrants, had probably come to America in search for a better life, and want their children to be better. I'm going to go ahead and say that most of Obama's critics simply wish for him to live up to his promises and bring about real change so that all present and future Americans may benefit, just like those parents wish for their children to have better lives than they had. As for some of them, though, I can't help but think that they are either so cynical and jaded that they expect no less than for him to betray his party, or that they have never liked or trusted him for some reason.
All politicians make promises during their campaigns; how quickly they can fulfill them is difficult for them or anyone else to predict. If they had told the truth and said that they can't promise they will give everyone's pet issue their full attention in their first year in office, would anyone vote for them? My argument is that we should believe those promises, but not expect our politicians to act on all of them immediately, and not expect them to have our number-one issues as their top priorities right away. Some people set themselves up to be extremely disappointed, but why do that when we know better? I swear they are like parents who are so cynical that they expect their teenage children to do drugs, imbibe alcohol, and hang out with the bad crowd even if none of them are actually involved in those activities. Add to that the parents' not believing their children even when they are telling the truth. It's sad that it had to come to this.
What bothers me the most is that the latter tend to like to spread their misery around. They go to Obama photodiaries or other positive Obama diaries and post comments that are intended to disrupt the stream of mostly positive responses and chastise the other commenters for being naive, stupid idol-worshippers who were blind to all his (supposedly) true loyalties and allegiances that they (think they) know him to have. Like they are in his inner circle, or could tap into his thought processes and discover his true intentions.
He ought to be criticized when necessary, but some of his critics are truly taking it too far and attacking his character, assuming the worst intentions, and bullying those who still support him. Do they really think they are helping the cause by attacking the President this way? Do they really think primarying him is a good, noble action against a supposedly corrupt politician? Do they really expect him to fulfill all his promises at an inhuman pace, circumventing the obstacles of the media, his opponents, and all the delays in the legislative process? Who is really naive here?
