Good New York Times piece on liberal frustrations “despite being in what, on the surface, is a commanding political position.” 

“On the surface” are the key words there. There is a well-documented tendency in the lefty blog-o-sphere, among political radicals, true blue progressives etc. to blame the Democrats, and specifically Obama, for squandering their “commanding political position” on moderate and incremental reforms. There certainly are some Democrats who hinder the process, Blue Dogs and Senate moderates mostly. They aren’t left-wing, and most have never claimed to be. But without them there would be no commanding majority. Without them we wouldn’t even be able to make incremental reforms.

And that is the chief reason our political system is so broken.

The United States has a profoundly (small-c) conservative governmental structure largely because the profoundly anti-democratic Senate hinders everything worth doing. One of the most shameful instances of this is the fact that anti-lynching laws were kept off the federal books for decades because of a cadre of Southern senators.  Big change comes really, really slowly, if at all. And that is a terrible thing, but blaming Obama ignores the true impediments to change. Instead, blame the structural forces that constrain him, and constrain progressives, tying the fate of strong legislation to moderates who don’t share our ideological commitments.  

Obama isn't blameless. There are plenty of things I think he could have done better. (No Larry Summers or Ron Kirk for instance.) But presidents aren't all-powerful change agents (in our country at least) and to attack Obama for failing to bring about single payer or whatever else denies the complex political realties we face.

Much of this has been said before. But after some of the conversations I’ve been having recently, I needed a good vent.