Barack Obama has chosen the meme that social security is in crisis as his first line of attack against Hillary Clinton. The fact that we have “only 40 years” or so to fix it is something that we need to act upon RIGHT NOW DAMMIT!!!!

I have to go with Chris Bowers’ analysis:

Obama made it clear he would not run as either a partisan Democrat or a partisan progressive from the start.
Back on Sunday, playing on the whole “what happened to the Obama of 2004” theme, the Carpetbagger Report notes we should have seen that Obama was not going to run as a partisan from the start

……

We should have seen that Obama wouldn’t run as either an ideological or Democratic partisan from the start. His 2004 convention speech made that perfectly clear. We should also have seen that a bruised and battered Democratic activist base, after years of defeat, being called traitors, and inability to get Republican to compromise on anything at all, wasn’t exactly willing to just throw their hands up in the air and say to Republicans:

…..

That wasn’t going to happen, even though it would have helped Obama if it had. Democrats, especially the under 50 progressive creative class portion of the party, don’t just want conservatives to finally stop attacking them so everyone can finally all hold hands. Instead, for once, they actually want to win. Unfortunately for Obama, he offered them milquetoast unity instead.

Now, in reaction to being pushed by the progressive base on McClurkin, Atrios notes the many ways that Obama lashes out against progressives:

Aside from the adoption of right wing frames, this kind of statement is incredibly insulting to both the LGBT community who are apparently “hermetically sealed from the faith community” and to the “faith community” which is apparently defined as nothing more than a bunch of anti-gay bigots. Not to mention the Democratic Party, which apparently includes no actual religious people.

It’s really just insulting to everyone, with a touch of “shut the hell up I know best.”

This isn’t new. Obama has done this before. In fact, during 2006, he repeatedly engaged in the long-standing practice of chastising progressives for not being nice to people of faith:

…..

Obama has long criticized the left for being hostile to Americans of faith whenever he was pushed on this topic. In fact, he often made such criticisms without even being pushed. As such, there was no reason to expect that his reaction to criticism of choosing McClurkin, or really his reaction to any progressive criticism, would be any different. If Democrats and progressives criticized anything in his campaign that had to do with faith, those same Democrats and progressives would simply be told that they aren’t properly reaching out to people of faith. At the same time, he has consistently failed to offer progressives and Democrats any red meat, no matter what Republicans would do or say. This is a clear pattern for Obama. We should have seen it coming.

(emphasis mine)

Obama is well spoken, but for whatever reason, and my guess would be his loss to Bobby Rush early in his career, it is clear that he holds liberals in disdain, and it is clear that he wants to be considered one of Washington, DC’s “very serious people”.

The problem is that Washington, DC’s “very serious people” are always wrong. They were wrong on Iraq, they were wrong on social security, they are wrong on Iran and tax cuts, and they continue to be wrong when they say that the adults will take charge in the Bush White House.