I have spent the better part of this week contemplating the things that WH Robert Gibbs press secretary said in his interview with The Hill earlier this week.

And when I say contemplating, I truly mean it. I don't know if I completely disagree with what he said. An awful lot of people who consider themselves on the left are quite angry, and to a certain extent I don't blame them. That said, sometimes it is hard to hear things we don't like to hear.

Personally I think the White house's biggest liability is it's communications. The Reverend Wright story, death panels, Shirley Sherrod, these are all things that should have been dealt with far stronger than they were. What Robert Gibbs said was very inartful, but was he wrong?

On July 30, this is what Ed Shultz said on his show (hat tip to my friend Karoli for finding this) : Earlier in the year, FireDogLake Asked people to help kill the Senate Health Care Bill. They also went on to Primary Blanche Lincoln in Arkanasas. I don't actually disagree with that tactic. I believe we are stronger when we have primaries, but to expect the administration to not support the incumbent shows a willful ignorance to how politics actually works. Many FDL progressives were outraged. Lincoln won, and the meme came out that Democrats would sit home for the election. The reality is that in States like Arkansas and Nebraska, Lincoln and Nelson are about as left as we are going to get without a real grassroots effort. A grassroots effort. FDL owned by Jane Hamsher is not a grassroots organization. FDL's leader Jame Hamsher IS the professional left, and she HAS been lambasting pretty much everything this administration has done. So has Glenn Greewald. Greenwald has actually been proving Robert Gibbs' point. Pundits like James Carville haven't been helping either.

I don't need to always agree with any one columnist or cable pundit. That said, when I see a consistent drum beat against this administration I get weary. I have read professional bloggers on the left say that Obama was like Bush. I think you have as well, and truthfully, as a NON professional lefty, I totally disagree with this statement. What I don't understand is why so many people who are also non professional lefties are taking this so personally. He wasn't talking about people on Facebook, message boards or even twitter. He specifically mentioned "professional left" -- meaning people who get paid money to follow a meme. From the Hill's article: What I don't like is that way he said these things. I don't. Maybe just for that he might want to take a vacation. This man is -- for better or worse -- the press secretary, and he does represent the White house.

I do believe there is a difference between pushing this administration and totally slamming it. I try to be pragmatic, considering the horrible waste this country was left in on January 20, 2009. There are those that have been consistently unhappy with everything it has done-- and I am not talking about the GOP or the Tea Party. Politics is about compromise, and -- especially in the Senate, we simply do not have the majority we need to get all the things we might want. Sometimes I get the feeling that some people want Obama to be the lefty version of the last President.

When you have progressives asking people to not vote, and to kill bills, this is not helping anyone. I can understand the frustration on both sides. The reality is the state of politics in this country today, when both the progressives and the White House are alienating people, then the GOP wins. Gibbs said something that perhaps needed to be said, and he said it terribly. But I don't think he was talking about you or me. I don't think he was talking about DKos, Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow. I think he was talking about a select group of people or pundits. As Keith Olbermann pointed out last night, the left and the right think differently, he is correct, and that is where this communications arm of the White house consistently wrong.

I don't like that he said this, but I cannot say I totally disagree with the sentiment. I HAVE met people who will not be satisfied for anything short of Kucinich for President. There are still PUMAS's out there.

Somehow the left needs to come together and realize that we are not all going to get our ponies this way. Change is incremental and it is happening, and while it may not be happening fast enough for some, or exactly the way they want it, it is happening. You can check it out here.

and
Raine

Update to add: Personally I am far more angry at the things that come from the mouths of the GOP. They've been talking smack a lot longer about the left, and have said a lot worse. We should be focusing on ousting THEM.