To be fair, there is a lot of complaining from the left that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but a lot of the reason that Andrew Sullivan is happy with Obama, is the same as the reason that the left is angry: Obama has been an excellent moderate-conservative president. Sullivan is moderately conservative himself so win. Or maybe not.
The fact that Obama has been a moderate conservative and has adopted lots of GOP ideas/policy positions, has, among other things, forced the GOP into the insane land that they currently occupy. The only way to attack Obama from the right is to adopt the beliefs of the lunatic fringe, because any sensible republican view would be that Obama was one of them!
On the other hand, where Sullivan tries to point out "liberal" successes he fails miserably.
A depression was averted. The bail-out of the auto industry was—amazingly—successful. Even the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by a recovering banking sector. The Iraq War—the issue that made Obama the nominee—has been ended on time and, vitally, with no troops left behind. Defense is being cut steadily, even as Obama has moved his own party away from a Pelosi-style reflexive defense of all federal entitlements. Under Obama, support for marriage equality and marijuana legalization has crested to record levels. Under Obama, a crucial state, New York, made marriage equality for gays an irreversible fact of American life. Gays now openly serve in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act is dying in the courts, undefended by the Obama Justice Department. Vast government money has been poured into noncarbon energy investments, via the stimulus. Fuel-emission standards have been drastically increased. Torture was ended. Two moderately liberal women replaced men on the Supreme Court. Oh, yes, and the liberal holy grail that eluded Johnson and Carter and Clinton, nearly universal health care, has been set into law.So much wrong...
- Depression was averted but we are not on a path to recovery, and current politics are geared to making things worse--Obama is in no small part to blame for that.
- Auto/bank bailouts - meh. Neither liberal nor conservative, doesn't fit.
- Iraq - he carried out the Bush plan, which is probably to be commended, but he is still fucking up in Afghanistan so not much of a victory for the peace loving crowd.
- Defense cuts - first decent pro-liberal point (though where does Ron Paul fit here?). Oh, and he is moving the party toward more conservative position on entitlements is a liberal win how?!?
- Support for gay/marriage equality and marijuana legalization have been increasing trends for more than a decade now, nothing to do with the man in the Oval Office. (And if Andrew wants to talk NY's law on marriage equality as an Obama thing, then so too are AZ and AL anti-immigrant laws, very bad argument here.)
- Non-carbon energy and the stimulus - good but nowhere near what it needs to be. Climate change and energy are the two biggest issues facing a growing and developing planet and we are positioning ourselves behind Europe, SE Asia, China, S. Africa...not really a strong position.
- Fuel emission (CAFE) standards don't work, so again, meh. A gas tax increase would score as good. A large gas tax increase would score very good. (I know, legislation, but if he wants liberal wins, those are they, not CAFE).
- Torture was ended...because Obama said so. No investigation, no prosecutions, no anything to actually guarantee that the next president who wants to torture won't be able to, or would at least think twice. Oh, also: gitmo, indefinite detention, and Bradley Manning. Obama's record here is so appalling that it's offensive that Sullivan even went there.
- The Supreme Court is more conservative now than when Obama entered office. It is more female, which is very good, but Sotamayor didn't really shift the court but Kagan is more conservative than Stevens so the court is now more conservative. How is that a liberal win?
- Near-universal health care is now law...though it is a GOP plan. Half credit at best here. It was as good as we could probably hope since Lieberman is a douche, but hardly a major liberal win. More like a "Good job, now let's try and fix it up."
Because of the highly dysfunctional Senate occupied by obstinate Republicans and rather passive Democrats, I don't think that Obama could have hoped for a lot more legislatively than he ended up getting. But he didn't really try either, and that is one frustration. Another is that where he has executive authority (recess appointments, granting trials to Gitmo detainees, looking into torture) he has been quite bad.
I don't really disagree with Andrew overall, but while arguments against Obama from the right are grounded in fantastical lunacy, arguments from the left have a pretty solid foothold in reality. It doesn't mean things would be or could be better. But his shortcomings are real, and four more years of this isn't likely to make for a better country.
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