I'm an Obama supporter, but here's my problem with this and it's pretty simple.

SS is easily fixable. Medicare is not. Medicare is where the crisis is.

So choosing to focus on the easily fixable issue and calling it a crisis, while ignoring the harder issue... well, that tells me this whole faux crisis talk is political calculation rather than political leadership.

And coming from Obama, that sort of thing runs directly counter to his public persona.

Posted at November 16, 2007 11:22 AM in response to The Left's Obama Problem

I would rather look at the idea that the religious left is renewing itself and finding it's voice again.

The religious left was pretty powerful for some time, with examplars MLK, the anti-nuke movement of the 70s and the Sanctuary movement of the 80s. But that is where it was attacked and left in tatters by the Reagan administration, who was claiming moral authority via the religious right while extinguishing it on the left.

All of which is to say that many liberals and progressives don't much like religion because of the relatively recent history of the religious right. But that is a new phenomenon. Go back just a bit farther and the left can reconnect to it's own rich religious history and voice.

Posted at November 2, 2007 11:23 AM in response to Should We Fear a Religious Left?