My point isn't that Obama has fully adopted the GOP party line on issues like unions. Like on many issues, he's been a mixed bag on it, more frequently progressive on some (like unions) than on others (like the size of the military).

It's that one can't assume that "follow through" on Obama's part means he'll enact a progressive agenda, given the substantial number of center-right signals he's given to date.

You keep right on "reasonably suspecting" my skepticism about Obama's perfect commitment to a progressive agenda.

Meanwhile, in the reality-based community, I'll recall that -- when it was convenient for him -- Obama, indeed, badmouthed unions as "special interests":

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/edwards_and_special_interests.html

Congrats on continuing to insist that I am a liar despite my directly backing up what you consider to be my weak-link point. Truthiness is very fashionable these days -- it looks good on you!

I have better ways to waste my time than parsing whether "exaggerating more than a little bit" is about something other than lying, along with your various distortions of my statements.

Acceptable: Stealing money from the middle and lower rungs of society and giving it to the wealthiest and most powerful

Unacceptable: Voiding sweetheart agreements that can be fulfilled only by stealing money from the middle and lower rungs of society and giving it to the wealthiest and most powerful

Can't you see the fault is not with the Obama administration, but with yourself?

Think of how much rosier the situation would look if you'd just walk away from your bad decision to be an honest commentator!

Re: "How anyone could write or even read that last sentence without succumbing to painful, prolonged cackling is genuinely mystifying."

For proof of that, look at most any quote cited here: http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

"A Lightworker -- An Attuned Being with Powerful Luminosity and High-Vibration Integrity who will actually help usher in a New Way of Being" -- Mark Morford

"Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?" -- Daily Kos

"Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings... He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence." -- Eve Konstantine

"We're here to evolve to a higher plane... he is an evolved leader... [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth." -- Oprah Winfrey

"I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered.... I know that that was God’s plan." -- Bill Rush

"He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh..." -- Ezra Klein

But my all-time favorite remains this one from Huffington Post:

"... We finally have a candidate in Barack Obama who uses the word 'We' while others use 'I.' He empowers us with words and the authentic emotion behind them and people are rushing into the tent to drink that magic water.

Candor, inclusiveness, poetry, and inspiration. We don't only deserve those things, we long for them. We want to be led and we want to be lifted and anyone who doesn't understand that simply doesn't understand us." -- Michael Sietzman

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

I think that's my favorite. It's so hard to choose!

"Indeed, his sheer personal awesomeness - and his ability to convey that awesomeness through the media - is so imposing it can make the rest of us mere mortals feel 'not worthy,' to use Wayne and Garth's terms." -- David Sirota

http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11019

So, Glenn, don't ever doubt our capacity to withstand the painful cackling that tragically funny "thinking" elicits (or should). The fact that we live in a transcendently transcendent era helps, too, no doubt.

Scientician,

If you read David Sirota regularly, have you not noticed that he can be a little, um, mercurial? Which I noted here, when I noticed the inconveniently accurate quote I referenced in my earlier comment...

http://www.correntewire.com/david_sirota_meet_david_sirota

In response to two or three posts at Correntewire about his screeds against people who, unlike him, are somehow not allowed to be Obama skeptics -- Clinton supporters should, he thoughtfully advised, "slither back to their ratholes" -- he called me and a blogmate "vaguely frightening hate stalkers."

Would that I could match up to Mr. Sirota's standard for fair and measured prose....

@bamage, thanks for noticing that an accurate quote is an accurate quote. As can be seen from my link above, I'm well aware that Sirota has not been consistently glazy-eyed about Obama. He's, in fact, written some timely criticism of the "Dear Leader" mentality, and that's been noted on my blog as well. Somehow, though, I lost the Open Left habit along the way. I totally suck as a hate stalker, I guess.

Glenn,

Just keep keeping it real.

I'd be lying (my least favorite pastime) if I didn't say that I've grown awfully disappointed with the liberal blogosphere (see sig link for interview with Eric Boehlert).

But this is one place where I can go and reliably hear important stories interpreted honestly and intelligently.

We won't see eye-to-eye on everything, but I really admire your keeping your sights on truth and honest progressive values.