September 7, 2009

Why Do Liberals Assume Obama's a Good Guy?

When the Obama administration does something liberals don't like, such as continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and taking single-payer health care off the table, they say Obama wants to do the right thing, but outside forces are preventing him doing so. You can read a typical example in an article on Counterpunch talking about Obama's mistakes in health care. You can see the subtle assumption of Obama's inherent goodness in the first sentence of the second to last paragraph in the article.

I don’t doubt that President Obama, a decent man, wants to provide universal health care to all citizens of this country.


How does the author of the article know what Obama wants? Obama took over $19 million in campaign contributions from the health industry in 2008. Isn't it possible that Obama is more interested in helping the health industry than providing universal health care? Isn't it possible that Obama's a bad guy (according to liberals) who favors corporate America over the American people?

To liberal Democrats the answer to both of those questions is a resounding No. They voted for Obama. Therefore he wants everything they want. They want universal health care so Obama must want it. They favor people over corporations so Obama does too. To suggest otherwise is spreading hate.