... doesn't like the sound of this one bit:

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-youre-not-crazy.html

http://correntewire.com/equivalating

It's really a thing of beauty how Obama critics are so heartily welcomed in today's progressive discourse, because our party rejects the "winning is the only thing" mentality.

Otherwise, you would have gotten a lot of flak when you wrote critically about Obama's support of the FISA bill!

Ditto for anyone who echoed your concerns:

http://correntewire.com/good_news_for_obama_in_florida

"It's too bad the site has been allowed to become corrupted like this."

Politico has been a right-wing venue since day one.

Glenn's got the story:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/05/04/politico_funding/

No "personality-based, substance-free (and issue-obfuscating) campaign tactics... to win national elections — building manipulative personality cults around their leaders while simultaneously destroying the Democratic candidate with character smears."

Well, except for the primaries, that is.

What the heck was I thinking?

http://vastleft.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-dont-know-how-to-love-him.html

Overall, it has been stunning since the election (let alone before it) how many prefabricated memes have dominated even progressive conversation:

http://www.correntewire.com/us_robot

Whatever else you can say about Obama's organization and supporters, they've been uniquely rational and welcoming of dissent.

The man doles out "magic water," and they tell you that straightforwardly, with no illusions:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/speeches-do-matter_b_86745.html

If Obama's campaign actively fuels a thoroughly baseless firestorm that claims his primary opponent roots or plans for his assassination, it's gracious enough to circulate a firebreathing rant about it to the entire press pool, and bloggers who support him freely admit that the target of the smear was a repugnant "victim":

http://correntewire.com/are_you_fucked_in_the_head

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=10442

When I suggested that the fixation on the historic implications of Obama's election might prove stultifying, the welcome wagon came out and evenhandedly accused me of having sex with insects:

http://correntewire.com/content/our-friends-blogosphere

So, pardon me for being a little skeptical of your claim that criticism of the new administration isn't accepted and, in fact, encouraged.

http://www.correntewire.com/triangulation_the_next_generation

Why is it that Barack Obama’s rhetoric sounds so strangely familiar?

Oh, I remember. There was this charming young fellow from Arkansas – what was the name of that town? Anyway, he had this awfully nice idea, about a “third way” alternative to right-left partisanship.

Link in signature and here:

http://tinyurl.com/57dr2c

What if there had been some kind of electronic system where articulate progressives could have joined in a loud and broad critique of Barack Obama's wrong-headed strategy of conciliation?

Some kind of log on the web -- I'm not sure what one would call it.

They could have written things like the items linked here (click sig):

http://www.correntewire.com/discussion_we_never_had

Perhaps one day there will be such a technology, instead of the science of the day, which permitted little more than endless preemptive hagiographies about a magical agent of change.

The problem was that there was only one other choice, and to have engaged that discussion passionately, one had to believe that the other choice -- in contrast to Obama -- would have been a "magical agent of change" rather than herself also a centrist triangulator and a status-quo perpetuator.

Not everyone who refrained from that discussion did so because they believed that Obama was a magical agent of change; many refrained because they believed that neither was.

Please note that my critique here was not aimed at you, but at the across-the-board failure of the mainstream new media to challenge Obama to run as a progressive, capitalizing on the moment and his vaunted rhetorical gifts to advance a progressive agenda and prepare him to govern from the left.

As to your reply, it suggests that progressives had only two choices -- going with the flow, or instantly, passionately, and irrevocably siding with one of the two Democratic finalists.

The road not taken by online progressives was to shine a bright light on those finalists, putting the squeeze on them when they failed to earn their progressive bona fides. Instead, Obama was the official brand of the Kewl Kidz, and the quality of left-blogosphere discourse about the home stretch of the primaries was simply pathetic.

The opportunity existed to push Obama to the left, but he had us at "Aloha," and he ran a campaign that supremely squandered a once-in-several-decades opportunity to repudiate the Reagan Revolution. Thus, the Republicans -- despite their deep unpopularity -- feel emboldened to continue pursuing their disastrous policies, aided and abetted by Blue Dogs who could and should have been put in the doghouse, had the campaign been defined in terms of "Who Wants to Be FDR?"

Instead, once Edwards dropped out, the primaries became -- especially for the influencers in the blogosphere -- a primarily tribal function. Obama never had to cater to the activist base, because the activist base catered to him.

The iron is red hot - there will be no better time for universal health care, enahncing social security, protecting and helping unions, reforming the banking systems, taking on the oil industry, and yes - even slushing the military industrial complex.

The only question is will Obama follow through?

I hope he doesn't follow through on campaign signals that included the false claim that Social Security is in crisis; badmouthing unions as "special interest groups"; whipping for hundreds billions for financials without accountability; cozing up to such energy lobbies as ethanol, nuke, and "clean coal" and praising the GOP for energy deregulation; and promising to expand the military.