Obama operative Steve Hildebrandt today:

A Message to Obama's Progressive Critics
The point I'm making here is that our new president, the Congress and all Americans must come together to solve these problems. This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn't the way he thinks and it's not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn't, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people - not just those on the left.

Translation: Shut the fuck up.

Lambert, December, 2007:

And here I have to say that this passage [in Obama's stump speech]--

[OBAMA]... there’s no shortage of anger and bluster ...

--grotesquely trivializes the experience of any aware citizen under Bush's rule. Is it wrong to be "angry" that the Bush administration has turned us into a nation of torturers? Is it wrong to be "angry" that the Republicans took us to war under false pretenses? Is it "bluster" to say that Cheney's claim to be the Fourth Branch of government is absurd? Is it "bluster" to demand our Fourth Amendment rights back?

And who might these angry blusterers be?

Surely not those "principled" Republicans, since Obama wants to "reach out" to them. Surely not Reid and Pelosi; they've been nice as nice, going off to the slaughter like lambs. Surely not Rahm Emmanuel or Chuck Schumer! And surely not Kristol, Broder, Brooks, or Sullivan!

Could the angry blusterers be .... Progressives? Harshing the mellow with their demands for accountability and the restoration of Constitutional government?

Of course, the moral and intellectual quality of our "Democratic strategists" is shockingly low, so Hildebrandt may be freelancing, or operating by reflex, is sucking up to some potential Village client, or just didn't get the memo.

Because it's hard to reconcile Hildebrandts deru kugi ha utareru attitude with Obama's support for the Repubic Windows sit-down.

In fact, Local 1110 didn't Shut The Fuck Up.

So why should we, or anyone else?

NOTE Hat tip Davidson for the iink. Via Susie, an excellent article on this age-old subject:

But during past eras of major progressive social movements – the trade union movement of the 1930’s and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s -- there was a very different perspective. It could be called a “natural division of labor” point of view. A Democratic President was basically assumed to be a ruthlessly pragmatic centrist who would make all his moves and choices based on a very cold political calculus of what was necessary for his own success and survival. He might have private sympathy for some progressive point of view but there was generally no expectation among social movement progressives that he would “go out on a limb” for progressives out of a personal moral commitment to some social ideal. As a result, the most fundamental assumption of progressive political strategy was always the need to build a completely independent grass roots social movement, one that was powerful enough to make it politically expedient or simply unavoidable for the political system to accede to the movement’s demands.

Yep. Goes for the media, too.

NOTE And Susie here.