Page Two: Presidential Perceptions

One of the oddest things about the ongoing assault on mainstream media – which is accused of demonstrating a clear liberal/progressive/radical bias – is that this view is not shared by any liberals, progressives, or radicals I know. They mostly believe that mainstream media now reflects, and has long reflected, the status quo with a bias perhaps toward urban sensibilities, but certainly not that it reflects any roots in or overt sympathies for hardcore left politics. In this strangest of political seasons, this belief seems relevant in the way that it affects perceptions of President Barack Obama.

Right wingers are teaching themselves to love Mitt Romney, despite any previous hesitations about his candidacy, because their main goal is to defeat Obama. It's another one of those puzzling disconnects – not that the right wing wants to defeat Obama (that is a given), but that, in their urgency, they bring to the task an extreme rhetoric.

I am a fan of the president and feel that he's done a good job despite the Republican Party's determination to see as little legislation as possible actually enacted during his term. In an ongoing effort to bring the president down, they have tried to forestall governing.

But I get the impression that this is a minority opinion. Certainly among the more liberal, radical, and progressive communities, this is not widely regarded as a successful administration. The left's disappointment with the president has been no secret.

I bring this up because the right labels Obama as a very successful radical governing force, and this pronounced sensibility has profoundly changed the country. His politics are accused of being more Marx and Lenin than Washington and Lincoln. According to some, his governing has brought us more in line with communism and socialism than the more traditional constitutional principles that have so long dominated. To many, the paramount political consideration is the need to get him out of office because he has already done so much to destroy the country.

Obviously one political party will always attempt to recapture the office of the president after it has belonged to another party, and this enterprise is always cast in the most dire of terms. In presidential politics, subtlety is as unexpected as it is rare. I don't want to state the obvious here as though it is some revelation, but the revulsion and dislike of President Obama, even given the extremes of ongoing political dialogue, seems unusual.

At this point, rational people may bring up the left's feelings about the previous president – but Bush involved the country in two foreign wars and his policies led to a recession. The dislike he engendered was as much political as it was personal. I would actually argue that it was far more about policy then personality, though I am hardly an objective observer.

Even though I like Obama, it is hard to argue that his administration has had the same sweeping impact as Bush's did during his first term-and-a-half, when American governing was re-imagined – and not for the better. The anti-Obama forces would have us believe that his administration has not only been radically transformative, but politically successful. Yet it just hasn't been that efficacious.

The Republicans have succeeded in slowing government down. That's what they desire but it doesn't result in a smaller government, just a less effective one. In this context it's hard to view Obama as a firebrand revolutionary. The rhetoric already ratcheting up on both sides has barely begun to simmer. If nothing else, this year's presidential campaign should redefine extremes on all sides.