Casting liberal allies aside will hurt Obama in the long run

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
WashPost
Thursday, December 9, 2010

What does President Obama think of those who fought and bled to pass his bills in Congress (in some cases losing in this year's election for their pains) while also defending him against wild charges from the right wing? Are they among the liberals he described as "sanctimonious," who long for the "satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people"?

Obama's comments make you wonder: Whom does he think he can count on when conservatives try to repeal the health-care law, force cuts in programs he supports, investigate his administration down to the last pencil and continue to denounce him as an un-American socialist?

A senior Obama lieutenant insisted that the president wasn't attacking liberals. He was responding only to those condemning him as a "sellout" for a tax deal that achieves many progressive goals, at the cost of extending tax cuts for the wealthy and egregiously conceding billions to very rich people who inherit large estates.

Yet simultaneously, the White House also sent out signals that it was consciously casting the president as a centrist problem-solver in a new iteration of Bill Clinton's old "triangulation" strategy.

(More here.)