As the pie fight between President Obama's defenders and detractors boils over across the progressive

blogosphere, a number of myths continue to crop up about both sides of the debate. These myths make
productive conversation nearly impossible, and despite being debunked time and time again, they
continue to rear their ugly heads among good Democrats either too ideologically blinded or blatantly
dishonest to forswear them. It's time we took at look at some of them and addressed each one:

1) There's no difference between Democrats and Republicans, aka Obama is just like Bush. This
statement should merit a single roll of the eyes and then be done with, but the frequency with which
this charge is made means some correction is necessary. The fact that Guantanamo Bay remains open,
that troops remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, that Wall St. and BP remain unpunished, and that tax cuts
have been extended on the wealthy are bad signs for our democracy and for the Democratic Party, no
doubt.

But to extrapolate from that, that there is no consequential difference between the two parties is
nothing short of insane. It's the sort of rhetoric that was used by Ralph Nader's supporters at the turn of
the millennium to state that there was no difference between George Bush and Al Gore. Would
President Gore have stopped the 2008 financial crisis? Probably not. But would he have invaded Iraq? Of
course not. Would he have cut taxes on the wealthy? Of course not. Remember that Obama himself
only agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts under duress, in exchange for continued benefits for
the 99ers and the renewal of the START treaty. Many like me think it was a deal Obama should not have
made, but we must not pretend it was the outcome Obama always wanted. In fact, higher taxes on the
wealthy are back on the table again for the next budget. As for Guantanamo Bay, many progressives
seem to forget that Barack Obama pushed hard to close that hellhole, but an overwhelming majority of
spineless representatives in both parties refused to imprison the detainees anywhere on the U.S.
mainland, leaving military tribunals or unconditional releases as the only alternatives. Meanwhile, Had
John McCain won the presidency, the U.S. would be mired in Libya and Iran. One look at Gov. Scott
Walker and the radical Paul Ryan budget should dispel any notion that the two parties are anything but
oceans apart from one another.

Frankly, anyone who can say they'll withhold voting and volunteering for Obama in 2012 while staring
down a Huckabee/Bachmann presidency with equanimity automatically loses the privilege of debating
those of us who live in the real world.

2) Democrats who criticize Obama aren't real Democrats/don't work hard for Democrats. This one
comes up fairly frequently, and is the product of basic ignorance about the progressives who criticize
Obama. A great many of us are super-volunteers in the Democratic Party infrastructure. I myself am 1st
Vice-Chair of the Ventura County Democratic Party. My brother and DailyKos Featured Writer Dante
Atkins is a regional vice-chair in the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Robert Cruickshank (formerly
known as eugene in these parts) used to be Vice-Chair of the Monterey County party, and is more
aggressive a critic of the Administration than I. Calitics' Brian Leubitz is a regional director in the
California Democratic Party. Chris Bowers has been heavily involved in the party infrastructure; our own
lammyc is on his central committee in New Jersey. Countless other Kossacks critical of Obama have been
involved in campaigns, including at high levels as campaign managers and field directors (myself
included, in assembly and city council races).

These critics are not cranky outsiders shouting into the hardworking tent. Oftentimes they are the ones
who have worked hardest for the Party and put the most time in. In fact, it's because we have worked so
hard, in so many cases, that we feel we have the most right to complain. It may be that most Democratic
voters are still happy with Obama. But many of us who put in countless hours to get him and many other
Democrats elected, and to get those voters to actually go the polls, are not. We cannot be ignored as
mere cantankerous riffraff.

3) Obama's supporters in the blogosphere are enabling his weakness / Obama's detractors are causing
Democrats to stay home. Wrong. The truth is that nothing in the blogosphere really matters to the
White House--positive or negative. The White House doesn't care. The White House cares about a few
things, and a few things only:

Doing whatever they think it takes to improve the economy. The fact that their economic advisers are
neoliberal supply-side hacks whose efforts directly hamper that recovery is irrelevant to the well-
meaning intent, which is to maximize chances of an economic recovery--a recovery that is more crucial
to Obama's re-election chances than all the progressive pet peeve issues combined.

Making sure the big donors will shell out the necessary campaign contributions to win a billion-dollar
presidential race

Making the sorts of high-minded compromises that do sadly often poll well with the addled 20% of the
country that can actually be swayed to vote outside of partisan loyalty, particularly in swing states
crucial to presidential races. Making sure that core policies and programs like Planned Parenthood and
unemployment extensions don't suffer from the Republican hatchet.

And frankly, the White House is sadly right to have these priorities, from a purely self-interested, tactical
and electoral point of view. Until we can really change the system--the way races are run, the way
they're funded, etc.--we really don't matter here. If I were advising Obama tactically on his re-election,
I'd tell him to ignore all of us, too. None of the arguments that happen between Obama's detractors
and his supporters online make the slightest bit of difference to the strategists in the White House. The
only thing these debates are good for is crystallizing the role of the progressive movement going
forward, working on behalf of non-presidential races, and mapping out the future in starting in
December 2012. That's all.

4) Obama is a great President doing the best job he can. This is obviously untrue on its face. Obama's
defenders often attempt to portray themselves as hard-nosed realists in the face of unreasonable,
childish and head-in-the-clouds idealists who don't understand how the system really works. While
many of Obama's detractors do clearly fall into this category (see #1), attempting to portray Obama as a
well-meaning change agent doing the best he can is fairly laughable, and at best demonstrates the soft
bigotry of their low expectations.
Two defining issues of Obama's presidency mattered more than any other so far: dealing with Wall St.
post-crisis, and dealing with BP. On both of those counts, the authority was his and his alone: not
Congress', not the Court's. He could have chosen to direct the Justice Department to mount
investigations and prosecutions in both cases. He could have appointed economic advisers like Stiglitz
instead of Summers. He could have opened the coastline to the media, exposed BP's actions to the
world, and gotten $100 billion in fines levied against the company, and then distributed the money to
the citizens of the gulf. He could have broken up the too big to fail banks and reoriented the economic
system with 80% of America behind him. The people were angry, and needed appropriate people and
entities to blame for what happened. Yet not a soul has been punished. Instead, they were rewarded.
It's impossible to deny: the Administration helped the investment banks--and continues to help the
banks--engage in a coverup of what is probably the greatest heist and financial crime ever perpetrated
in the history of the world--no exaggeration. And he helped BP cover up the greatest environmental
disaster in world history, which is no exaggeration, either. No surprise then, that the release of populist
anger vented out in the form of the Tea Party. Somebody is to blame for breaking this country. FDR
wasn't afraid to say just who the villain was, who was responsible for 1929. But Obama didn't want to
point fingers, so it's no surprise that the fingers got pointed at him, at Democrats, and at government in
general.

He did these things for all the right reasons, of course. He bought into the idea, agreed on by most of the
supposedly smartest people, the Davos crowd, the Tom Friedman crowd, that the world economy
depends on the health and success of the private financial sector, and the health and well-being of
transnational corporations, largely to satisfy the bond markets. The idea that all the world's wealth and
labor should be fungible on global markets. That's what was done with our healthcare system: put
everyone into the private marketplace, and then "win the future" by investing our way out of
joblessness. Single-payer healthcare wasn't on the table, not even as a negotiating chip.

That entire vision of economics, shared by leaders in both parties at least since Reagan, is a failure.
Obama was supposed to be a transformational president, a Harvard educated, world-traveled scholar
who understood these things. Who could lead us forward into a vision of something different, at a time
of great crisis--because things only really change during times of great crisis. The frustration comes at
the feeling that a great opportunity to reorient the social contract, when America was ready for a
reorientation of the contract, was simply squandered. As George Will crowed on the talk shows Sunday,
the entire conversation taking place in Washington today is using conservative vocabulary--this even
though we're still reeling from an economy crashed and a deficit caused by the utter failures of
conservatism.

By contrast, a Democratic President who is actually making a real effort sounds like this: here's an
excerpt from FDR's extraordinary speech at Madison Square Garden in 1936:
 For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government.
The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the
golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the
breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today
to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most
indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled
up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation,
reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own
affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by
organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand
today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for
power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces
met their master.

Imagine Obama, great orator as he is, giving a speech like that. It's almost shocking to think of it, which
is the whole problem. Americans would have welcomed a speech like that about the criminals on Wall
St. Instead, we got a president who hired Tim Geithner, and led much of the public to surmise that
neither party really cares about their interests.

As the pie fight between President Obama's defenders and detractors boils over across the progressive
blogosphere, a number of myths continue to crop up about both sides of the debate. These myths make
productive conversation nearly impossible, and despite being debunked time and time again, they
continue to rear their ugly heads among good Democrats either too ideologically blinded or blatantly
dishonest to forswear them. It's time we took at look at some of them and addressed each one:

1) There's no difference between Democrats and Republicans, aka Obama is just like Bush. This
statement should merit a single roll of the eyes and then be done with, but the frequency with which
this charge is made means some correction is necessary. The fact that Guantanamo Bay remains open,
that troops remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, that Wall St. and BP remain unpunished, and that tax cuts
have been extended on the wealthy are bad signs for our democracy and for the Democratic Party, no
doubt.

But to extrapolate from that, that there is no consequential difference between the two parties is
nothing short of insane. It's the sort of rhetoric that was used by Ralph Nader's supporters at the turn of
the millennium to state that there was no difference between George Bush and Al Gore. Would
President Gore have stopped the 2008 financial crisis? Probably not. But would he have invaded Iraq? Of
course not. Would he have cut taxes on the wealthy? Of course not. Remember that Obama himself
only agreed to an extension of the Bush tax cuts under duress, in exchange for continued benefits for
the 99ers and the renewal of the START treaty. Many like me think it was a deal Obama should not have
made, but we must not pretend it was the outcome Obama always wanted. In fact, higher taxes on the
wealthy are back on the table again for the next budget. As for Guantanamo Bay, many progressives
seem to forget that Barack Obama pushed hard to close that hellhole, but an overwhelming majority of
spineless representatives in both parties refused to imprison the detainees anywhere on the U.S.
mainland, leaving military tribunals or unconditional releases as the only alternatives. Meanwhile, Had
John McCain won the presidency, the U.S. would be mired in Libya and Iran. One look at Gov. Scott
Walker and the radical Paul Ryan budget should dispel any notion that the two parties are anything but
oceans apart from one another.

Frankly, anyone who can say they'll withhold voting and volunteering for Obama in 2012 while staring
down a Huckabee/Bachmann presidency with equanimity automatically loses the privilege of debating
those of us who live in the real world.

2) Democrats who criticize Obama aren't real Democrats/don't work hard for Democrats. This one
comes up fairly frequently, and is the product of basic ignorance about the progressives who criticize
Obama. A great many of us are super-volunteers in the Democratic Party infrastructure. I myself am 1st
Vice-Chair of the Ventura County Democratic Party. My brother and DailyKos Featured Writer Dante
Atkins is a regional vice-chair in the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Robert Cruickshank (formerly
known as eugene in these parts) used to be Vice-Chair of the Monterey County party, and is more
aggressive a critic of the Administration than I. Calitics' Brian Leubitz is a regional director in the
California Democratic Party. Chris Bowers has been heavily involved in the party infrastructure; our own
clammyc is on his central committee in New Jersey. Countless other Kossacks critical of Obama have
been involved in campaigns, including at high levels as campaign managers and field directors (myself
included, in assembly and city council races).

These critics are not cranky outsiders shouting into the hardworking tent. Oftentimes they are the ones
who have worked hardest for the Party and put the most time in. In fact, it's because we have worked so
hard, in so many cases, that we feel we have the most right to complain. It may be that most Democratic
voters are still happy with Obama. But many of us who put in countless hours to get him and many other
Democrats elected, and to get those voters to actually go the polls, are not. We cannot be ignored as
mere cantankerous riffraff.

3) Obama's supporters in the blogosphere are enabling his weakness / Obama's detractors are causing
Democrats to stay home. Wrong. The truth is that nothing in the blogosphere really matters to the
White House--positive or negative. The White House doesn't care. The White House cares about a few
things, and a few things only:

Doing whatever they think it takes to improve the economy. The fact that their economic advisers are
neoliberal supply-side hacks whose efforts directly hamper that recovery is irrelevant to the well-
meaning intent, which is to maximize chances of an economic recovery--a recovery that is more crucial
to Obama's re-election chances than all the progressive pet peeve issues combined.

Making sure the big donors will shell out the necessary campaign contributions to win a billion-dollar
presidential race

Making the sorts of high-minded compromises that do sadly often poll well with the addled 20% of the
country that can actually be swayed to vote outside of partisan loyalty, particularly in swing states
crucial to presidential races.

Making sure that core policies and programs like Planned Parenthood and unemployment extensions
don't suffer from the Republican hatchet.

And frankly, the White House is sadly right to have these priorities, from a purely self-interested, tactical
and electoral point of view. Until we can really change the system--the way races are run, the way
they're funded, etc.--we really don't matter here. If I were advising Obama tactically on his re-election,
I'd tell him to ignore all of us, too. None of the arguments that happen between Obama's detractors
and his supporters online make the slightest bit of difference to the strategists in the White House. The
only thing these debates are good for is crystallizing the role of the progressive movement going
forward, working on behalf of non-presidential races, and mapping out the future in starting in
December 2012. That's all.

4) Obama is a great President doing the best job he can. This is obviously untrue on its face. Obama's
defenders often attempt to portray themselves as hard-nosed realists in the face of unreasonable,
childish and head-in-the-clouds idealists who don't understand how the system really works. While
many of Obama's detractors do clearly fall into this category (see #1), attempting to portray Obama as a
well-meaning change agent doing the best he can is fairly laughable, and at best demonstrates the soft
bigotry of their low expectations.

Two defining issues of Obama's presidency mattered more than any other so far: dealing with Wall St.
post-crisis, and dealing with BP. On both of those counts, the authority was his and his alone: not
Congress', not the Court's. He could have chosen to direct the Justice Department to mount
investigations and prosecutions in both cases. He could have appointed economic advisers like Stiglitz
instead of Summers. He could have opened the coastline to the media, exposed BP's actions to the
world, and gotten $100 billion in fines levied against the company, and then distributed the money to
the citizens of the gulf. He could have broken up the too big to fail banks and reoriented the economic
system with 80% of America behind him. The people were angry, and needed appropriate people and
entities to blame for what happened. Yet not a soul has been punished. Instead, they were rewarded.
It's impossible to deny: the Administration helped the investment banks--and continues to help the
banks--engage in a coverup of what is probably the greatest heist and financial crime ever perpetrated
in the history of the world--no exaggeration. And he helped BP cover up the greatest environmental
disaster in world history, which is no exaggeration, either. No surprise then, that the release of populist
anger vented out in the form of the Tea Party. Somebody is to blame for breaking this country. FDR
wasn't afraid to say just who the villain was, who was responsible for 1929. But Obama didn't want to
point fingers, so it's no surprise that the fingers got pointed at him, at Democrats, and at government in
general.

He did these things for all the right reasons, of course. He bought into the idea, agreed on by most of the
supposedly smartest people, the Davos crowd, the Tom Friedman crowd, that the world economy
depends on the health and success of the private financial sector, and the health and well-being of
transnational corporations, largely to satisfy the bond markets. The idea that all the world's wealth and
labor should be fungible on global markets. That's what was done with our healthcare system: put
everyone into the private marketplace, and then "win the future" by investing our way out of
joblessness. Single-payer healthcare wasn't on the table, not even as a negotiating chip.

That entire vision of economics, shared by leaders in both parties at least since Reagan, is a failure.
Obama was supposed to be a transformational president, a Harvard educated, world-traveled scholar
who understood these things. Who could lead us forward into a vision of something different, at a time
of great crisis--because things only really change during times of great crisis. The frustration comes at
the feeling that a great opportunity to reorient the social contract, when America was ready for a
reorientation of the contract, was simply squandered. As George Will crowed on the talk shows Sunday,
the entire conversation taking place in Washington today is using conservative vocabulary--this even
though we're still reeling from an economy crashed and a deficit caused by the utter failures of
conservatism.

By contrast, a Democratic President who is actually making a real effort sounds like this: here's an
excerpt from FDR's extraordinary speech at Madison Square Garden in 1936:

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government.
The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the
golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the
breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today
to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most
indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled
up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation,
reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own
affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by
organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand
today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
 I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for
power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces
met their master.

Imagine Obama, great orator as he is, giving a speech like that. It's almost shocking to think of it, which
is the whole problem. Americans would have welcomed a speech like that about the criminals on Wall
St. Instead, we got a president who hired Tim Geithner, and led much of the public to surmise that
neither party really cares about their interests.

In sum, participants in the Obama Wars need to take a break and take stock of reality. No, Obama isn't
the third term of George Bush. Get a life, wake up and smell the roses. No, his detractors aren't fools
who have never really worked for Democrats: learn about them before making those sorts of
accusations. No, Obama's supporters online aren't enabling the Administration: that's embarrassingly
bad blogospheric narcissism. But no, Obama isn't even close to doing the best job he could as President.

Only once we all wrap our heads around those basic facts can we begin to have productive
conversations about the way forward from here.

In sum, participants in the Obama Wars need to take a break and take stock of reality. No, Obama isn't
the third term of George Bush. Get a life, wake up and smell the roses. No, his detractors aren't fools
who have never really worked for Democrats: learn about them before making those sorts of
accusations. No, Obama's supporters online aren't enabling the Administration: that's embarrassingly
bad blogospheric narcissism. But no, Obama isn't even close to doing the best job he could as President.

Only once we all wrap our heads around those basic facts can we begin to have productive
conversations about the way forward from here.