What Katrina vanden Hueuvel said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/15/AR2010061502292.html

Are Obama and progressives on the outs?

By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

There's a tension between the Obama administration and the progressive movement, but it's not the one mainstream media have been describing or that the White House seems to perceive.

Last week's America's Future Now conference in Washington prompted numerous stories about "demoralized activists" directing their anger at the president and Democratic Party leadership. Dana Milbank's June 9 column was among those that promoted the "liberals eat their own" storyline. He wrote: "For 17 months, anger at President Obama and congressional Democrats has been pooling on the left. On Tuesday morning, it spilled onto the floor of an Omni Shoreham ballroom and splashed all over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

Yet what's happening on the left isn't the equivalent of the anti-incumbent anger on the right. Most progressives support Obama and want his agenda to succeed. And although Pelosi may have been bushwacked by a disability-rights group last week, she was celebrated by most of the conference attendees for her ability to forge a majority for hard votes.

He'll never understand a word of it, no matter how right she is.

Has actually no power, influence, or input at all. Just a functionary. Has no responsibilities along this line, or in this area at all.

I guess Rahm just runs to the store for cigarettes.

They have to create drama to keep their jobs going.

DU falls for it every time.

Not sure he wasn't to begin with.