His main issues are Afghanistan and unemployment, and like David Sirota, he refuses to acknowledge the fact that Obama ran on the campaign issue of refocusing from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Rich writes
To many progressives, Obama’s too-cool handling of the [BP oil spill] disaster was a confirmation of a fatal character flaw--a professorial passivity that induced him to prematurely surrender the sacred "public option" in the health care debate and to keep too many of his predecessor’s constitutional abridgements in place at home and at Gitmo.Again, Lieberman blocked the public option, Obama didn't surrender. With Gitmo,* Obama made an attempt but they backed off that and trying KSM in New York City after it was said that Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate race because of the Xmas day bomber. Also, they didn't want to provoke the previous regime.** Also, Obama had a lot on his plate with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and passing health care reform.
Basically some progressives - I'd question Rich's claim of "many" - want Obama to emote more. Appointing Elizabeth Warren would be a nice emote. (A Republican Senator just blocked Peter Diamond's nomination to the Federal Reserve Bank board so it's worth noting that the obstructionist Republicans just might block Warren also. And if they do and Obama nominates someone else like he did when his nominee to the OLC Dawn Johnson was blocked, will he get no credit from the emo-progressives?)
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* The band "Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine" is playing the Metro on October 8th.
** Sort of like how in nations that have transitioned to democracy - see Spain, Chile, or Pakistan etc. - the newly elected democratic governments try hard not to provoke or upset the military, so that they won't reenter politics.
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