@JoanWalsh, Obama enabler

I've never thought the editor of Salon was all that liberal, so nothing she says in this column about the political coalition of Obama 2008 vs. any possibility of a similar coalition in 2012 is surprising.

Nonetheless, it's worth categorizing some of the more egregious errors.

First:

Since I've been critical of the president before, let me say here that I don't believe there were many concrete measures he could have taken to accelerate the recovery and reduce unemployment, because Republicans in Congress dug their heels in to fight on day one, and conservative Democrats wouldn't go along, either.

Not true. As I have said before, Obama "compromised away the compromise position" on the stimulus package by starting his proposal at less than the "magic" $1 trillion, largely per the advice of his then-chief of staf, Rahm Emanuel.

Walsh then tries to correct herself with this:

My main concern has been Obama's failure to use his presidency to tell voters a story about our changing economy, and even when he didn't have the votes in Congress, to lay out what he thought was the right course.

That presumes that he wanted to tell the voters a story that you think he did, Joan. Instead, you've been and become a sucker for "brand Obama." With a glut of white-collar layoffs already, and American businesses unwilling to do in-house retraining, Obama instead pitches "college, college, college" when the following things are clear, per recent studies and recent Beltway antics:
1. A lot of people don't learn that much or study that much in college;
2. An Ivy degree is still worth a lot in an aristocratic sense, even, or especially, for those who don't study that much there.

Walsh then talks about economic instability of ever-more-unequal income.

And, makes another "enabling" error by blaming Obama's financial advisers for various matters without blaming their boss.

She ignores talking about the Obama tax cuts, though. (He's been in office more than two years, and, in the middle of the Congressional GOP peddling debt-cutting austerity, has yet to mention eliminating the Bush tax cuts for income above $200K, therefore, they're now the Obama tax cuts.

Then, like a Beltway insider type, a DC Villager, she drops this turd in the punch bowl:
And the left can't remain unrealistic, either. Too many progressives sold Obama as a soulmate, when it was always clear he was a centrist who'd placed a high value on conciliation, and who believed he was good at it: He'd done it all his life, how could it not work in Washington? It's unfair to blame him for being the president he said he'd be.
Plenty of us, who DIDN'T "sell Obama as a soulmate" said before the 2008 election, Joan, that Preznit Kumbaya would get his head handed to him on a platter if he tried to be a conciliator. The GOP balking at the financial bailout, while not offering an option, made that clear.

So, wrong in spades. It's very fair to blame him.

And, we'll continue to do so.