When George W. Bush was elected, progressives claimed he was not only not their president, but not the president at all. A homicidal maniac in Iraq was 'elected' but George Bush was not, they claimed.
When Barack Obama was elected, progressives said he was not just a Democrat but instead a president for all people. Typical stuff and both sides do the same thing, he just happens to be the latest.
As he has tried to navigate the perils of a difficult economy and geopolitics on the world stage, he has faced the usual criticism from opponents but also slams from his own party - he didn't take imperial action against a sovereign nation that was no threat to anyone outside its own borders (Egypt), people complained - but that made sense, he was against Iraq so it would have been hypocritical to do so in Egypt - and then he did take imperialist military actions against a sovereign nation no threat to anyone outside its own borders (Libya) because the United Nations told him to and now it stands to be taken over by fundamentalists.
On the economic front, he has tried to juggle a poor economy and progressive policies. That meant things like subsidizing green energy efforts and enduring ridicule when they failed - the FBI is invading the offices of companies he personally endorsed, which is never good.
This week he outlined a new plan to try and create jobs - and it sounds fine, but actual business owners are not buying it.
On the tenth anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, people remember one thing about Pres. George W. Bush - he stayed on message. He didn't talk as pretty as Pres. Obama, but if you asked him what time it was, he told you it was time to kill the terrorists. People felt like he believed in what he said. Pres. Obama came into office with a belief that American businesses were fat and could afford more progressive expenditures and that was a disaster and suddenly he says he is a friend to business. Maybe he is, it's a smart re-election strategy to change things around, but will business people trust him?
Here in California, Gov. Jerry Brown says the same thing - he likes business. Well, he has hated business his entire career, business was just a mechanism to fund his progressive policies too. People don't buy it. Closing 'loopholes' that supposedly cost the state a billion dollars a year sounds a lot like a record company claims on 'pirated' music. It's half made up and the other half unreasonable optimism that anyone who may have access to something would have bought it regardless. The real aspect of Gov. Brown is silly stuff like forcing Amazon to shut off 27,000 tiny reseller accounts in California because it was supposedly costing California so much money. That money disappeared from the people and added nothing to California.
