When all is said and done, it's not about right and left. It's about right and wrong.

Bacus' bill voted out of senate finance committee yesterday, according to Jane Hamsher at firedoglake.com, was Obama's bill.

Obama doesn't really want a public option. He continues to take a middle ground that is not a win for anyone. It is now up to the house to hold the line. It would be an unexpected miracle if Harry Reid did the right thing and got the public option to the senate floor.

We had 8 years of denial of important issues during the Bush years and we don't need a more sophisticated way to delay thought and action.

There seemed to be a bit of dust-up last night between Jane Hamsher and Booman, carried out via Twitter. It was prompted by a piece Booman wrote that is directly relevant to Glenn's post. Here is part of Booman's piece (linked at my name):

The truth of the matter is, right or wrong, the progressive blogosphere has been a more severe and on point critic of the Obama administration than any teabagger. And, in many ways, that is to the community's credit. We don't embrace the cheerleader's role and that gives us more credibility. When the president screws up, we're willing to call him on it. But, Jesus Christ, do you expect the administration to lie down and say, 'Thank you, sir, may I have another'?

If you berate them for not closing Guantanamo fast enough, not ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell fast enough, not evacuating Iraq fast enough, not passing a health care bill fast enough, and so on...do you not expect one of their number to at some point push back and point out that making these kind of changes takes time and is a bit difficult?

And, where the hell do you get off taking it personally? Aren't you the ones accusing them of being whores to the insurance industry and Wall Street and the military-industrial complex? Do you think they are going to find that criticism generous and well-intended?

Booman comes so close, and then completely misses the mark. He understands that the progressive blogosphere plays a key role in keeping Obama's feet to the fire with regard to his grand, progressive campaign promises we heard in the primary. He then lists the areas in which the blogosphere has documented that Obama has failed to live up to these promises.

However, Booman then argues that the anonymous pajamas-fringe statement is an appropriate response from the Obama administration. So, in Booman's world, the proper response to criticism based on comparison of Obama's promises to Obama's actions is to attack the messenger, rather than respond to the substance of the criticism. That is a move dangerously down the 2000-2005 GOP pathway Glenn is warning us against.

If the Democrat constituency does not follow the path of the GOP voters/supporters/etc under Bush, and largely continues to criticise Obama for things that he ought to be criticised for, but - at the same time - Obama continues to follow the policy paths laid down by the Bush administration, what then?

Then, would we have an administration devoid of moral and electoral legitimacy, and a party and/or constituency that remain morally and electorally legitimate?

Would anything else have changed? Or, do you believe that sufficient sustained reality-based criticism from the left can and will alter the already-plainly-visible trajectory of this administration?

Or perhaps that such a manifest betrayal and consequent division would set up something better happening in 2012?

I ask because it already seems plain - to me - that this administration does not answer to its putative base, it does not feel beholden to them, and it does not fear them. (It also SEEMS obvious that it answers to someone else, is beholden to someone else, and fears someone else, but that is perhaps another topic.)

It also SEEMS that the same is true of the Party itself: it seems to be coompletely divorced form its base, morally, policy-wise, and priority-wise.

So, if all that you urge were to be done, what then occurs?

Where does this go?

Is it a case of "if we dont do this it guarantees we will lose" or is there more to it?

What frustrates me endlessly is that we have to apply pressure to our own candidate because he wants to keep torturing, escalating wars, trashing our rights.

WTF. At least Bush stayed on script - throwing money at churches, destroying environmental protections, cutting taxes on the rich, launching wars and trying to privatize social security. The right didn't really have much to criticize.

i needed a pep talk. and this was perfect.

i think my instinct to support Obama is out of protection and because it is fun to finally give it back to the leaders who called us unpatriotic for dissenting during the Bush years.

but that is hypocritical.

thanks for getting me back on the right track!

...not the Noble Peace Prize.

EconCCX (corrections troll)

Glenn, Glenn, Glenn:

Right as usual, another brilliant piece. I love to read these essays, and so do a lot of other people. But we've somehow got to get these observations, subtle as they are, condensed, for a public that doesn't have the patience to read an entire paragraph let alone two.

You probably saw Jon Stewart the other night skewer CNN for its idiotic fact-checking of SNL while failing to fact-check a variety of talking heads it itself interviewed. At one point, Stewart made the point you've been making, too: For CNN, fact-checking is bringing on two old guys with opposing editorial points of view, in order to provide "balance."

My point: Stewart got it done in a few succinct words, and made it a punchline of a great set-up. Everybody who watched totally got it.

Tthis is not a criticism of your blog. Far from it. You're doing the heavy lifting of analyzing this stuff and thinking it through on paper. That takes a lot of words and hard thinking. Dirty work, somebody has to do.

But now you or somebody -- WHO??? -- needs to get this compressed and simplified to make these observations part of public common sense