I just watched President Obama's speech, and it was a good one. But I must say, I'm getting a little tired of Democrats scoring political points by beating up on progressives. Obama's quite fond of constructions like progressives want x, crazy republicans want y, the implication of which is that the answer must lie somewhere in the middle.
I get why he does it. It makes Obama look responsible and reasonable--or in true Village tradition Not Shrill and Responsible. But it's a fallacy, and, frankly, more than a little irresponsible.
Progressives aren't the ones bringing guns to town hall meetings. We're not the ones making up stories about Communist Nazi death panels. We're not the ones who claim that Obama wasn't born in the US, or that FEMA is making secret internment camps, etc.
I'll be the first to admit that progressives have their crazy moments, but the false equivalence implied by Obama and stated outright by so many in the major news networks is not just wrong, it's insulting.
The fact of the matter is that the Republican party has shifted to the right--and hard. And even with all their demagoguery and lies, they have managed to lose--and strikingly--since their brief and disastrous rise in 1994 (or, more long term, since Nixon). Progressives have cowtowed and capitulated time and time again, bowing to some false sense of center, and America is much the worse for it. That there is disagreement is not a sufficient condition for compromise. That there are two sides does not imply the truth must be found in the center.
The greatest advocates of the principles for which you strive, President Obama, are progressives. So stop scoring points off of us, it's less-than; it's beneath you, and it's beneath the movement you claim to represent.
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