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Subscribe to RSSPolitical observers have placed so much emphasis on the “liberal” second inaugural address that President Obama delivered yesterday.
David Remnick in the New Yorker called Obama “a liberal emboldened by political victory.”
Scott Andrews / Pool via AP
President Barack Obama waves to crowd after his Inaugural speech at the ceremonial swearing-in on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol during the 57th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, Monday, Jan. 21, 2013.
The Atlantic’s James Fallows added that the speech was “the most sustainedly ‘progressive’ statement Barack Obama has made in his decade on the national stage.”
Politico’s Thrush agreed.
So did we. “More than anything else, [the address] was an unabashed defense of liberalism/progressivism,” we wrote in First Thoughts.
And now the GOP-leaning group Crossroad GPS has pounced on similar commentary with a new web video. “At least his rhetoric is now matching his record,” Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio said in an email announcing the video.
But what is being mostly overlooked is how many of the policies and viewpoints Obama articulated in his inaugural address are supported by majorities of Americans.
Chris Cillizza, in for Chuck Todd, talks about President Barack Obama's inaugural address and his forceful argument for progressive values.
Take Obama’s advocacy for gay rights, for example. (“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” Obama said in his speech yesterday). As it turns out, per the Dec. 2012 NBC/WSJ poll, a majority of Americans -- 51% -- favor gay marriage. That’s up from a mere 30% in 2004.
There’s also immigration reform. (“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity.”) The Jan. 2013 NBC/WSJ found another majority -- 52% -- supporting giving illegal immigrants the ability to apply for legal status.
And then there's his defense of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. (“These things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”) Polls overwhelmingly find that Americans support these programs.
One issue that Obama discussed yesterday -- stopping climate change -- is a topic that could be a harder political sell, although the NBC/WSJ poll hasn’t tested it in a long time. And it is possible, as the Washington Post's Dan Balz notes, that Obama's second term could be marked by overreach.
But it's also hard to argue that these “liberal” ideas and policies are somehow far outside the political mainstream.
As Politico writes, “The cultural changes that allowed Obama to be the first president to mention gay rights in an inaugural address are already widely accepted by the public or destined to be so soon as a younger, more socially liberal generation comes of age. The president’s promise to address climate change and his peroration on continuing ‘what those pioneers began’ on gender equality, gay rights, voting rights, immigration and gun control likewise illustrated just how much the White House is convinced that the country’s cultural center has moved.”
NBC's Domenico Montanaro contributed to this article.
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I hope Obama does overreach. I remember the promise of transparency in Washington and he would welcome all ideas. Instead, the first two years of his first term were dedicated to back room deals, a failed stimulus, and the Obamacare. The result was that dems got slaughtered in the midterms and the GOP regained the House. I see the same thing happening again. The more he pushes his liberal agenda, the bigger chance the GOP has of taking control of the Senate.
geo,
What will Obama do? More than the Do Nothings, the walk away from meetings, the lies about votes that are never taken, more than crying baby tears. More than what the republicans have done the past 4 years!
Chris the not Scholar,
The republican party will be lucky to survive! The approval rating for the name "republican' is 26% and even Fox has the approval of the House and Bonehead and the republicans at 15.2% The republican party has become a disgrace and many, like me a former republican, are leaving it all together!
chwyd.....keep drinking the kool aid and believing your own press. Glad you are a former Republican. Good riddance.
Conservatives have stopped Oblunder from dragging us into the quicksand... like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the other Progressive countries... unfortunately, we have to save your sorry ass with us....
Chris No Scholar,
The republicans will be lucky to survive as a party. The latest approval rating was 26% for the name and 15.2% for the House approval rating which Bonehead and the republicans control. Like me, a former republican , we are fed up and leaving the party now! It has become a disgrace!
Liberals are like kudzu... a parasite that needs to be eradicated.... they don't produce anything... they just loot and reproduce....
Call me in 2014; I'll bring the popcorn.
Our worthless president is the direct result of the lack of values and intellect of the American people.
Liberal have gotten to the point where they want to decide on a specific number that allows someone to live comfortably, and then tax the remaining amount. if 500,000 is enough, doesn't matter if you make 600,000 or 40 million, you should pay 100% of the remaining. This is liberal logic. The fact that someone plays GOLF for a living increases the libs hatred of Phil's rich's. Every other athlete has figured this out, but Phil is going to be the one to take the brunt of liberal journalist questions this season.
Libs aren't happy with any rate, it wouldn't be enough if Phil was taxed at 75% because he'd still be making millions. According to libs Phil is greedy, while the person who has lived off welfare his entire life is needy.
Yes there are people that truly need assistance, an no republican wants to deny these people that assistance. Welfare and government programs should be temporary, Obama is creating a state of lifetime dependence.
Libs will measure Obama's compassion for the poor through dollars spent instead of by the number of people brought out of poverty. Its ironic that the more money being spent supporting the poor, the higher the increase in people becoming dependent. Obama is hurting the very people his brilliant speeches promise to help.
Yep, lib logic 101: Those who work hard for what they have, who pay taxes, and want to keep what they earn are "greedy"... but deadbeats who don't work, who don't pay anything, and who expect something for nothing, are not... can you say Looter-in-Chief???
liberal is mainstream now? Wonderful. Begging the government to solve your problems is a sign that you can't make it on your own. Perhaps you should have studied harder in high-school
Begging for alms and an inverted (gaming the system is cool and work is for suckers) value system is the new norm... Liberalism at its best...
MY problem is with the entire Republican party, including their policy wonks like Paul Ryan - who want to rob Americans blind, with their superb lies and propaganda. Yes, the American people wised up, and pulled back from the Brink. Another Republican administration in the White House right now would surely have been the Coup De Grace for the American worker, both middle-class and blue-collar. MORE war in the Mideast (as quickly as possible), MORE de-regulation of Corporations, MORE tax cuts for the rich, and elimination of social safety nets, as well as our national pension system: Social Security. It would have been ALL OVER, for an entire generation of Americans or more, in just a few hectic months. People would not have known what hit them. Thank God those fools lost.
You're FOR the middle class... but against business.. that creates the jobs that make the middle class possible... what an idiot you are....
Get ready for hIllary in 2016, you repukes won't have a chance to create another depression,,,losers
Well, if the leftist media ignores her allowing the Bengazi folks to be murdered (like they are now) and demonizes her opponent at every opportunity (like they did Romney), and give her $billions in free propaganda by fawning all over her daily (like they did Oblunder)... you're probably right...
Though we only need about 2 million people to pull their heads out of their a$$es to make that not happen... which should happen when the "middle class" gets it in the butt from Obamacare.... I already know people who have cronically ill people in their family and are losing tax benefit from the reduction of deductible medical expenses and the lowering of the health spending account limits... Oblunder, Pelosi, and Reid really stuck it to them....
Oblunder's trying to turn the US into Detroit... they "taxed those filthy rich" (right out of town... along with the rest of the taxpayers), demonized business and success, paid people to walk onto the Welfare Ghetto Plantation, eyes open (in exchange for their votes), and has stayed under Democratic control for decades... (no Republicans to blame there)... and it's a s***hole wasteland warzone... the archetype Progressive Cesspool...
Oh I forgot selling their soul to public unions and going into bankruptcy...
But if they could just borrow a few more hundred million....
As one who has worked his entire life to provide for his family and to give the gift of a chance at a better life to my children and grandchildren, I have lived long enough to see this Marxist dope take everything he can away from me , and from my children and grandchildren.
They face diminished prospects for future employment, an education that leaves them ignorant and dpendent on Mother Government, and energy and food costs that will leave us all scratching our heads. The 29 hour work week will become the norm, and death panels will decide the fate of the old and the infirm.
What a wonderful world - what flavor kool-aide was that? No thanks!
What has President Obama taken "away" from you or your family, fcrisp? Go ahead and name them, please. I AM a business owner, and he has taken nothing from me - except taxes, of course, which as a real patriot, I pay without complaint, because living here allowed me to become successful enough to pay taxes.
But back to your rant, no other way to describe it, what has been taken away? Tick-Tock
The Republican "mainstream" thinking is over fifty years behind the times. Obama was speaking to the 2013 mainstream of Americans, issues, and challenges. Republicans won't understand what he was saying until about 2065.
The use of the word "collective" should raise a red flag for all of you!
This was the key terminology that was used in the growth of the failed USSR road to communism.
The US and it's foundation is not based on "collectivism", it is based on free enterprise and rugged individualism...
Why would we want to follow a pathway that has failed, virtually every time?
After reading his speech a couple of times and the more I read it the more evident of how far left he is aiming his focus...
You wear the term "McCarthyite" with pride, don't you Shepherd?
Obama doesn't need Legislation to work on Climate Change. He has the EPA.
dont you mean he has executive orders. After all he makes it clear he has no issue skirting the processes to get what he wants.
A narcissist through and through
If it's outside the process there should be no problem getting those orders overturned in court...yet that hasn't happened.
Next empty talking point.
Liberalism is the new definition for retarded