Populist versus liberal

Nathan Newman is making sense.

The case against Obama seems to boil down to a few nuanced sentences on whether he might have any flexibility in adjusting timelines for withdrawal from Iraq, whether he thought the words "right to bear arms" could have some constitutional relationship with owning guns, whether he thought it was a good idea to funding religious organizations in helping fight poverty, and whether he thought raping children might reasonably warrant the death penalty. Oh yeah, and FISA (more on that below).

What all these issues share is that in practice, almost none of them would effect the day-to-day lives of Americans. The Supreme Court ruling on guns was incredibly narrow in specific application, the Iraq withdrawal comments were incredibly small nuances, his promotion of funding religious groups is a good thing, and it's a cost-free political position to oppose raping of children once the Supreme Court has banned the death penalty (and might even have merits on principle). But gay marriage, which does matter to a lot of peoples' lives was the place where he stood up and fought, which is exactly what a populist should do. Maybe that's the difference between a liberal and a progressive populist. The liberal takes positions that pisses off people even when it doesn't matter practically in peoples lives.

Read the rest.

Once again, let's keep things in proportion.