By Tom Hilton, No More Mister Nice Blog
Posted on December 27, 2011 | ALTERNET

Last week 60 Minutes released the full video from their interview with the President, and it included this unaired quote:

I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.

What happened next was predictable: right-wing bloggers immediately spun this as Obama calling himself the “4th best president” (some actually put quotation marks around it, falsely suggesting that he had used that exact phrase). In a matter of hours, the meme was firmly established in the political discourse (Politico, ever helpful, nudging it along with a story about the right-wing reaction). 

Obviously, there is an enormous difference between what the President actually said and what the wingnuts say he said (Jonathan Capehart is good on this point, providing additional context for the quote). It may have been more candid than wise to say it, but taken on its own terms (legislative and foreign policy achievement), it’s hard to argue with: the 111th Congress is generally acknowledged to be the most productive in decades, and the President’s foreign-policy sucesses are impressive by any standard. But never mind all that: for anyone on the right, the established narrative is crazy narcissistic delusional egomaniac Barack Hussein Obama calling himself the fourth greatest president. That’s the reality the right has constructed for itself. 

Well, fine; that’s what they do. At least the left doesn’t do anything like that.

Oh, wait…

Wednesday, self-appointed Obama scourge Dylan Ratigan jumped on the bandwagon, saying the President had claimed to be the “fourth best president ever”. Same false meme, exact same wording.

On Twitter, Matt Stoller saw their “fourth best” and raised it:

Yup, that’s right: a guy who thinks of himself as “progressive” is tweeting the same meme with the same wording as an ad funded by American Crossroads.

This isn’t about substantive criticism of the President. This is peevish, petty sniping…done in a way that advances the narrative of the other side

Here’s the deal, guys: if you’re echoing false right-wing memes, you’re not a liberal; you’re not a progressive; you aren’t anywhere on the left. You are, at best, a useful idiot for the right.

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SELECT ORIGINAL COMMENTS 

“Progressive” Critics Use False Right-Wing Narrative to Go After Obama 

• 
  Neo Conned

  …
  Of all the “accomplishments” Obama achieved, how many people were put back to work without reductions in pay or benefits? How many of the unemployed 99ers are facing no more benefits because Obama allowed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to continue rather than letting them expire?

  And of things like the Lillie Ledbetter Act, how strong are the enforcement provisions? What agency is charged with enforcing this law, and were they funded?

  And how about all those fails when it comes to civil rights and liberties? Is Guantanamo getting dusty yet? Are the telcos still wiretapping without warrants?

  Anyone can reel off a list of passed bills. The devil is in the details, and from what little I’ve found regarding Obama’s “accomplishments”, the devil hasn’t had much to do. The total says only one thing: Obama is no liberal or progressive.

• 
  Joshua_Holland

  I don’t think this post has much to say about substantive criticism of Obama. The point is that if one falls to the left of Obama, then one should criticize him from the left instead of reinforcing RW BS. 

  A point with which I totally agree, BTW.
  EDITORS’ NOTE: Joshua Holland, is Alternet’s editor in chief 

• 
  mikesoul

  Yes, the idea that someone getting legislation passes is in and of itself the hallmark of a successful administration is nonsensical.  You point out many reasons why Obama should be opposed by the left–and there are many more than the ones you listed.  The author of this article actually said with a straight face that there are many “foreign policy successes” by the Obama administration, and yet claims to be the arbiter on who is and isn’t a progressive.
• 
  NABNYC

  I don’t think it’s wise to try to rank a sitting president under any circumstances, but when the nation is involved in two major wars which Obama has not ended, when further wars have been waged aggressively against nations that did not threaten or attack us, when unemployment is 20% in actual count and higher among some groups and the first mention we hear of any public jobs program is a pathetic last-minute throw-away by Obama instead of being his first priority, as it should have been, when foreclosures continue along with homelessness and schools are being closed, teachers and cops fired, I’d say it’s unwise for anyone, president, newscaster or blogger, to try to celebrate the presidency of Barack Obama.  We need the wars ended, we need full employment, we need a national healthcare system, we need to reinvest in our own country and stop the further sending of jobs to other countries, end imported foreign labor.  I understand the president has limited power in these matters, but if there is one thing he can do, it is to provide inspiration and leadership.  He hasn’t.  Instead of prosecuting Wall Street criminals and seizing their assets, Obama defends those thieves and says they work hard.  So do I, but I don’t earn a living stealing money from other people.  In leadership, guidance, inspiration, platforms, proposals, a vision for the future, Obama has done nothing.  In taking money from Wall Street I agree, he’s #1.
• 
  wwittman

  Rattigan is a self-described ‘conservative’; he’s just against current banking practises.

  But he’s no “liberal” and it’s a big mistake to see him as one.

• 
  Om Victory Hemp

  The fault lies not in the progressive critics but with Obama himself who made it happen.
• 
  mikesoul

   the President’s foreign-policy sucesses are impressive by any standard

  With all due respect Tom Hilton, while you may have a point about it being wrong for critics on the left to use right wing criticisms against Obama, you can’t be serious in presenting yourself as the arbiter on who constitutes the bona fide left when you make statements like that.  Foreign policy successes?  Are you serious?  You mean his imperialist wars in Afghanistan and Libya?  You mean his support for the fascist coup in Honduras?  You mean his continued embargo against Cuba?  You mean his targeted extrajudicial assassinations of American citizens?  If these are the “successes” of the Obama administration, then those are successes we can do without.  It is bad enough when Obamabots and Democratic Party drones claim to be “progressive” while supporting the imperialist foreign policy of the Obama administration–a foreign policy that is virtually indistinguishable from the neocon policies of his predecessor–but to go further than merely acting as an apologist and actually asserting that his foreign policy is something to be lauded even as he clearly acts contrary to progressive values in his policies—and then in the same breath you attack people for not being bona fide “progressives” as you yourself act as an apologist for a non-progressive foreign policy–all I can say is, congratulations for managing to engage in that little exercise in chutzpah with a straight face.

  There are so many reasons for critics on the left to attack Obama–his horrendous civil liberties records, his whoring himself to corporate interests, his spitting on feminists with Plan B, his spitting on environmentalists by delaying the smog regulations, [protection for the Gulf] and so on–that maybe we should be focusing more on how the left can best articulate these reasons for opposing Obama, rather than making nonsensical and anti-progressive statements in praise of Obama’s foreign policy.

• 
  mikesoul

  That was not the “only point” of the article.  The author also sung the praises of Obama’s foreign policy in that same article–something that is clearly nonsensical.  The author of that article was clearly coming from the perspective of an Obama apologist.  Those of us on the left need to differentiate ourselves from both the right wing critics of Obama and the Democratic Party apologists for Obama.
• 
  seazen

  Obama is not – as the Right wanted to somehow sully him – a Messiah. He is also not a dictator. What he is, in fact, is a man that we elected because we believed he not only had the right intentions (goals, purpose, values, etc.) but that he had the intelligence and courage to wage into the midst of a dysfunctional political morass, a broken financial system, a misguided set of foreign affairs debacles and work to begin to set things right. I am staggered by the level of instant gratification demands from those who profess to be progressive and who will jump on Obama because of the hundreds of things on his plate he hasn’t somehow done exactly what we want when we want it.
  We have left the man pretty much out there on his own for the past 2 years and have had to wait for the emergence of OWS to begin to get to the core of the issue again. “We” need to continue to fight for the renewal of a shared fight for the common good with the full knowledge that we are in a marathon; not a 100 yard dash. Heck, we didn’t even do enough to help produce a Congress that might actually work with him instead of being little children fighting over their toys.
  Think for just a minute of Obama’s “to do” list and think of our own. We need to encourage him to do his part and, more importantly, to do ours – which cannot simply be to generate some sense of self-satisfaction by declaring if we were in his position we could do better. Obama has worked extraordinarily hard across many fronts to actually get things done within the context of the limits of how our government actually works. No, he is not perfect but I guarantee you cannot identify a person who would have begun to do as good a job as he has.

  
  

  Editor’s Note: The contorted argument above is clearly what our radar defines as an Obama apology. To claim that the country was so broken as to make any demands for tangible improvement something “unfair” is a well-known (and dishonest) meme of the center shielding Obama from critics. We are not idiots. If Obama had at least tried in earnest AND been defeated, then, perhaps, such arguments would hold water. But a man who wages wars with cynical impudence; who appoints the foxes to guard the chicken coop from the very start of his administration, is a traitor to the public interest. Period. 
• 
  jomicur

  Not a dictator?  He’s not a totalitarian, granted, but what other word would you use to describe a president who claims the power to assassinate American citizens without any semblance of due process; who thinks he has the right to pronounce people guilty of crimes they haven’t even been charged with and to imprison them indefinitely and even torture them (see under: Manning, Bradley); who wages “secret wars” with no accountability to congress or the American people; who increases the already awful program of government surveillance of citizens; who signs the NDAA, granting himself the power to use the military to detain American citizens indefinitely and even to “extraordinarily render” them to foreign countries for detainment and “interrogation”; who utters not a word about the increased militarization of domestic police forces?  I’m asking seriously.  What term would you use for a president who does all that, if not “dictator”?
• 
  seazen

  You list a series of issues/concerns that are among those certainly worthy of serious thought and discussion. For the most part they appear to stem from the profound dilemma of 21st Century conflict. The US, for a variety of reasons, is clearly the target of groups whose intent to “bury” us is as sincere as were those of earlier Soviet leaders. How do we respond to such a threat. Nuke ’em? Shock and Awe? Biological weaponry? Or, do we try to develop an approach that is more relevant to the realities of the threat. None of these approaches is free from the moral outrage they deserve. Doing nothing is certainly equally irresponsible. Given the demonstrated threat to us all of one form of “suicide” bombing or another on our soil by folks who are, legally, American citizens we have to develop an effective and acceptable response. We managed to tolerate the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan and the wasting of Baghdad and most the Iraq but are offended by far less destructive measures.
  We need an open and honest dialogue about these things starting with the problem/threat first and then an assessment of our options for response. While I understand your concerns about many of elements of the current approach, I am not at all certain what you rather we do – and why.

  Editor’s Note: “Seazen” seems to be determined to rank as one of the more obtuse of the lot of Obama apologists.  His argument that, “The US, for a variety of reasons, is clearly the target of groups whose intent to “bury” us is as sincere as were those of earlier Soviet leaders…” denotes as much ignorance and brainwash regurgitation as is possible to find in an otherwise functioning human being. “The variety of reasons” comprise volumes of crimes over almost a century of high-handed imperialistic foreign policy.  As for this poster’s understanding of the conflict between the US and the USSR, the less said the better.
• 
  jomicur

  As any number of observers have commented, if we abrogate our Bill of Rights as a response to terroristic  threats, we have effectively surrendered to the terrorists.  No one that I’m aware of has suggested we do nothing.  But our various responses to the (quite possibly overstated) threat from various terrorist groups seems to consist of 1) undermining  our constitutional rights and 2) pouring a LOT more money into corporations, e.g. the manufacturers of airport body scanners, for ludicrous “anti-terror” measures that are ineffective and frequently outright laughable.  (Does anyone really believe that strip searching old ladies and toddlers makes us safe?)  These have certainly been the Obama administration’s responses, and they are fairly obviously the wrong ones.

  I keep waiting for some policy wonk somewhere to explain why limiting the rights of American citizens makes it less likely that foreign terrorists will target us.   But I’m not expecting that explanation anytime soon, because there is obviously no answer to that question that makes sense.  Is it too much to suggest that our response should be reasoned and proportional and should not amount to the president a) shoveling money to his campaign contributors and b) assuming powers which, I repeat, are quite dictatorial.

• 
  jomicur

  You’ve sure got me there.  I’ll admit it.  Obama was not appointed by the senate of ancient Rome.  As Jospeh L. Mankiewicz one wrote, you have a point–a stupid one, but a point.

  If the powers (blatantly unconstitutional powers) are not dictatorial, what word would you prefer?

  And will you Obamabots please let go of this damn silly conviction that the only criticism of your Dear Leader comes from the right?

• 
  seazen

  Fascinating to see the strange enthusiasm on this threat (sic) for labeling (Obamabots, your Dear Leader). They sound strangely like the nonsense we hear from the minions of folks like Rove, Ailes, Hannity, and Limbaugh but they come from folks who declare they represent the “left.” Hard to follow but still verifying the thesis of the article.
• 
  mikesoul

  It is always amazing to hear Obamabots trying to justify and make excuses for Obama.  For about the millionth time, the problem with Obama is not that he isn’t doing enough of what we want.  The problem is that he is actively pursuing egregiously offensive policies, and you can’t blame those on an intransigent Congress or Republicans or whatever other excuse the Obama apologists try to come up with.  If anyone thinks that targeting American citizens for assassination, or otherwise having a civil liberties record that is as bad if not worse than Bush’s was is an example of what a “good” job he is doing, then your definition of “good” is a lot different than those of us on the Left have. If one thinks that imperialist wars and covering up for corporate crimes and killing Plan B and delaying smog regulations are examples of how “good” a job he is doing–well, congratulations.  One should in that case by all means support Obama.  But the rest of us on the bona fide left have a different take on things.

  
  
• 
  seazen

  First, I would like to say that when one hears or reads things like “Obamabot” it is a little difficult to take the rest of what you have to say seriously. It suggests that rather than consider what someone has said or written seriously, it is sufficient to simply dismiss them out of hand because you do not agree with them. I am not an anything “bot.” I consider myself a progressive but am not a “progressivebot.”
  As I tried to say earlier, I do not personally think everything that has or has not been done across the full range of domestic and international affairs is perfect but I believe our criticisms should be tempered by at least an acknowledgement that the full scope of what is being addressed is staggering. And I believe that those most vociferous in their criticisms need to have strong arguments as to what, in practice, would have generated a better outcome. I have never met anyone who always did everything exactly the way I would have done them but as long we shared common goals I have found it more productive to support them rather than insist I new better. And to even suggest that Obama is somehow supportive of “imperialist wars” or “covering up for corporate crimes” is a bit over the top. And I guess I need to know what the “bona fide left” is these days.
• 
  mikesoul

  I use the word “Obamabot” because if a Republican President were doing half the egregious things that Obama was doing, the same people who are acting as Obama apologists would instead be screaming to high heaven.  Clearly, there is a knee-jerk partisanship going on here, whether the Obama apologists want to admit it or not.

  And if you think that Obama has not been covering up for corporate crimes, you haven’t been paying attention.  His refusal to go after corporate criminals–his denial that crimes have even taken place–along with his efforts at pressuring states attorney generals to sign onto a deal that would give bankers in the foreclosure crisis immunity from prosecution--which some attorneys generals are so far refusing to do, to their credit.  While running for President, he claimed that he would filibuster the FISA bill that gave telecommunications companies immunity-but then, after getting the nomination, he changed his mind and actually voted for the bill.  The list goes on.

  As for imperialist wars, I need only mention his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, his use of cluster bomb attacks that killed civilians, his drone attacks in Pakistan, his war in Libya (and his refusal to adhere to the War Powers Act because, laughably, he claimed that this was not “hostilities”).  His imperialism extended to his support for the fascist coup in Honduras.  

  So no, actually, it is not over the top to describe Obama as covering up for corporate crimes or for supporting imperialist wars (and imperialism in general.)

¶

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