Environmentalists Turn on Obama

[Pangloss]

Interesting article in the New York Times on Friday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/politics/11protest.html?ref=politics

 

“I voted for the president, I canvassed for him, but we just haven’t seen leadership from him,” said Ms. Miller, who rappelled down Mount Rushmore on Wednesday with colleagues to unfurl a banner protesting what they called President Obama’s acquiescence to the compromises. (They were arrested and charged with trespassing.)

 

These folks need to be careful. The issue is not Obama, it's acceptance of the science by the public. IMO only an extremist could believe that Obama lacks sincerity or motivation on the issue of global warming. He's going to continue to do the best that he possibly can, gradually ramping up over time.

 

I think the mainstream environmental groups have it right in supporting these bills and keeping the general pressure on to move forward, not demanding the most aggressive bills possible and shoving it in the face of Christian conservatives, which is the sort of thing that just gets turned around four years later. We don't need two steps forward and one step back. We need one careful, realistic step, followed by another, followed by another.

 

What do you all think?

[bascule]

Golden boy with feet of clay!

 

If people are this quick to turn on Obama I really doubt they understood his platform in the first place. Also: he's been in office about half a year now... he still has a lot of time to address these problems.

 

Obama is doing a lot of things I'm unhappy with but I'm certainly not out there projecting my own political views onto Obama and then getting angry when he doesn't live up to them.

 

I'm mostly unhappy with various campaign promises Obama made which he is yet to honor. Some he has done the outright opposite. But that's politics for you.

 

Overall I still think he's doing a good job and support him.

[iNow]

I think he's choosing his battles, and has a solid read of the landscape. He'll pick the fight as soon as he knows he has the upper hand, and not before. The environmentalists are right to be impatient, as AGW is a runaway train which we need to stop/slow sooner rather than later.

 

I'll be more curious to hear what they say toward the end of the year after the global summit on climate change. Right now, those handfuls of environmentalists to which you refer are like a kid upset because he can't get candy before dinner, and need to grow up a bit. Dinner is on it's way, and it's gonna be right tasty.

 

Fortunately, that "I want my candy NOW!" perspective does not apply accurately to the large majority of "environmentalists."

[John Cuthber]

I think the title needs changing.

I'm not interested in knowing what turns Obama on. I might be interested in hearing that the environmentalists had turned against him.

 

Also I think most environmentalists are realistic enough to accept that you can't stop a runaway train in a hurry without doing a lot of damage.

[Pangloss]

You're right, my subject line didn't come across quite the way I intended. I actually took it from the headline of the news article and was a bit tired at the time. It's accurate enough, but perhaps a bit misleading.

[iNow]

I guess everyone's got a fetish. If environmentalists do it for him, then who am I to judge?

[Pangloss]

Or VERY misleading....