It's OK if you're an Obamiac

Remember the first decade of this century, when the acronym IOKIYAR arose?

It summed up in shorthand the ideas of Karl Rove and others that they would just check out from the reality-based world.

Well, now, it's clearer than ever that it's time for IOKIYAO — the "O" standing for "Obamiac."

Example No. 1? Obamiacs are overall OK with Dear Leader's unconstitutional, silent-killer drone warfare plan.

And by Obamiacs, to get blunter than Joan Walsh, we mean, "White, Volvo-driving, latte-sipping, Meyer-lemon-for-lemonade-squeezing (neo)liberals."  Here's the key point:

In a YouGov poll of 1,000 voters last August, (Brown University political scientist Michael) Tesler found significantly more support for targeted killing of suspected terrorists among white “racial liberals” (i.e., those liberal on issues of race) and African-Americans when they were told that Obama supported such a policy than when they were not told it was the president’s policy. Only 27 percent of white racial liberals in a control group supported the targeted killing policy, but that jumped to 48 percent among such voters who were told Obama had conducted such targeted killings (which Tesler refers to as the “Obama cue”).

That said, per Walsh, such folks need to get more skeptical about the alleged success versus actual reality of the drone program.

Bigger takeaway is Tesler's research in general. He has four simple questions to determine "racial liberals." But, unlike a Chris Mooney, he doesn't trot out a bunch of neuroscience, or even the latest psychological profile theories, to make overblown claims. He just uses his four questions to distinguish groups, then looks at polling breakouts of them on specific issues.

Also per Walsh, he sounds like someone for skeptical liberals to keep an eye on.