Obama called liberal critics 'sanctimonious', criticizing them for staking out 'purist positions.' Liberals' last gasp

Two years ago, liberals saw President Barack Obama as the second coming of FDR.

Now they're accusing him of practicing Reaganomics, taunting him at caucus meetings and trying to get him to renege on his first bipartisan deal since Republicans won the midterm elections.


At best, House Democrats' rage at the Obama tax bill is a principled last gasp on behalf of liberal ideals. At worst, they're whining, kicking and screaming their way to the margins as Obama turns them into the foil for his newfound centrism.

Either way, Republicans and even some Democrats say, the need to act out reveals that liberals are in a state of denial.

“We are allowing the liberal wing of the Democratic Caucus to hold these critically needed tax cuts hostage,” Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) told POLITICO. “It is long past time to get this deal done and get our economy moving again. Unfortunately, my colleagues are either not listening to what the voters are saying, or they are not interested in doing what is best for the American economy.”

It's easy to understand why liberals are feeling a bit whiplashed. In the blink of an eye, they went from advancing the most progressive agenda since the Great Society to defending against a tax-cut bill that they say provides a windfall for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else.

In part, they are disillusioned by the contortion of a president who said he would let taxes rates rise on high-end income. But there's an extra measure of anger that arises from their frustration at being isolated, cut out of the negotiations and told by the vice president that they can take it or leave it.

Obama this week called liberal critics “sanctimonious” and criticized them for staking out “purist positions.” And the final insult may have come Friday, when Bill Clinton, the ultimate centrist, dominated the White House podium for 30 minutes, laying out a staunch defense of the tax bill.

But instead of playing ball in their last days in the majority, liberals are pinning blame in other places for their loss of influence.

They blame Obama's communications team, his perceived lack of involvement in their races and an electorate that didn't, or couldn't, understand the value of the work Democrats in Washington were doing. They’re blaming everybody but themselves.

On Thursday, liberal lawmakers chanted "Just say no!" and "No, we can't!" — ridiculing Obama's campaign slogan — as they voted by voice to disapprove of his tax cut deal during a closed-door caucus meeting.

Outnumbered moderates could do little but groan and roll their eyes at the display.

On Friday morning, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), a co-chairman of the president's 2008 campaign, said "if we recklessly cut taxes for the wealthiest 2 percent, then Obamanomics will look an awful lot like Reaganomics."

But as they throw a tantrum over a tax compromise that stands little chance of being rejected in the end, liberals risk further isolating themselves from a new political paradigm in which Obama, congressional Republicans and a healthy contingent of more moderate Democrats have coalesced around the package of tax cuts and unemployment benefits.

Centrist Democrats warn that their liberal counterparts could do enough damage to themselves and to Obama to reassure independent voters who cast ballots for Republicans this year.

"There's a change. You have to accept it," said New York Rep. Brian Higgins, a reliable Democratic vote on most issues who backs the tax package. He said it makes no sense to "whine about" that change. "To try to make something of it is the responsibility of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress."

One senior Democratic aide said the tax proposal is “going to pass” and that the liberal complaining is “just going to make us look that much more irrelevant” in the end.

But not everyone has come to the same conclusion.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) initially demanded a vote of the caucus to oppose bringing the bill to the floor before acceding to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's request that he alter the proposal to simply disapprove of the Obama plan in its current form.

“For once, we’re standing up to him and saying we’re not going to facilitate what we believe is another mistake, plain and simple,” DeFazio told POLITICO.

For some Democrats, the histrionics would be funny if they weren't so potentially devastating politically. While liberal activists, commentators and lawmakers believe they need to take a tougher stand on taxes and other issues, others argue strenuously that it's independent voters Obama and his party must recapture to win in 2012 and beyond.

Failing to prevent tax rates from expiring at the end of this month “would be a political miscalculation of the same magnitude that the Republicans committed in '95 and '96 with the government shutdown," said Rep. Artur Davis, an Alabama Democrat who is retiring after a losing a bid for governor.

On the Senate side, many Democrats are holding their fire for the moment. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO he wouldn't discuss the tax proposal, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said he hadn't made up his mind.

Schumer and Obama have been engaged in a behind-the-scenes tussle over the tax package for weeks, with Schumer urging the president to take a stronger stand and Obama countering that he won't let taxes go up on all Americans — as they are set to do on Jan. 1 — to prove a point.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told the National Review that liberal "whining" has gotten to the president.

"I like the president personally, but he’s whining to the left about ‘You’re putting too much pressure on me,” and he’s whining to us about making his life difficult, Graham told the magazine's online blog "The Corner." And he called the lame-duck Democratic agenda the “last gasp of liberalism.”

But the tax deal is clear evidence that Obama can read a political box score, and he pivoted swiftly into the role of grand bargainer to show the public that he can play ball with Republicans as easily as he worked with Democrats. Indeed, FDR 2.0, it seems, has become a quick study of Bill Clinton's legacy.

Davis (D-Ala.) said Republicans often found themselves on the losing political end of bipartisan deals struck with Clinton after they took control of the House in 1994, singling out welfare reform as a poignant example.

"This may be an opportunity for Obama to reposition himself in the same way," Davis said. "Republicans may end up ruing the day this deal was cut."

But liberals want to reposition their president and their party in the other direction. The voter-enforced change hasn't yet taken effect — or taken root in the minds of many congressional liberals.

With less than a month left in their majority, they are hoping to force Republicans and the president to make concessions, even as it's clear the clock is about to run out on their ability to influence the discussion.

The anger remains palpable — over both policy and a process that essentially cut House Democrats out of the equation. But they might as well get used to getting nothing and liking it — because they're not necessary in the new governing paradigm.

"I disagree that we didn't get anything," liberal New York Rep. Gary Ackerman said of the tax deal this week. "We got screwed."

Many political observers believe such injuries are self-inflicted and promise to pile up if House liberals don't soften their stance.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., ran for Senate in 2010.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Charles Hoskinson @ 12/11/2010 12:58 PM Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., ran for Senate in 2010.