An Open Challenge to Taylor Marsh and the Rest of the Professional Left: Name the President that Measures Up

Taylor Marsh wrote

FDR came from the 1%, but he didn’t govern from the 1%.
JFK also came from the 1%, but took on Big Steel.
Both FDR & JFK walked head-on into confrontation and weren’t afraid to make waves.
FDR connected with the people like few presidents since. JFK didn’t live long enough, but his connection to the American people and helping them dream is unquestioned and resounds today.

I’m also not disappointed to say most of the things Pres. Obama has accomplished most any Democratic president would have also done....

These are two separate quotes from two different articles by Taylor Marsh.   I put the two statements together because they illustrate the precise reason why so many Barack Obama supporters feel that the criticisms of Obama from the left are as racist as the criticisms of Obama from the right.  While her statements are not as obvious as a bone through the nose nor as crude as a field of watermelons they are still racist in that they have one standard for white men and another for a black man.










Taylor Marsh is eager to paint the white Presidents of the past as courageous fighters for the little guy and the black President of today as a mediocre light weight ready to capitulate. 

Reality is not Taylor Marsh's friend.  The fact is that there is not a single President in history that has ever measured up to the standards of the Professional Left which is 1. Get sweeping legislation done 2. Never make deals to get the legislation done 3. Never compromise an inch.

FDR does not live up to that standard.  He doesn't even come close.   FDR bailed out banks.   And i don't recall any mass arrest of "banksters" from my reading of history.   FDR hired the head of General Motors to be his Secretary of Treasury, and he hired a robber baron to be the first head of the S.E.C. .  Imagine what the PL of today would say to that?

FDR "caved" to the blue dogs of his day when he excluded the vast majority of black people from Social Security eligibility.   He also capitulated to the America Firsters when he denied Jewish refuges.  Do I need to even mention the internment of Japanese Americans?  Remember that FDR did all this "caving" while having majorities in both Houses that Obama could only imagine.   The day that Obama sees 75 Senate Democrats  will be the day when Taylor Marsh's woeful comparisons have validity (this was at a time when there were only 96  Senators since Hawaii and Alaska weren't States yet).

While we all love to hear stories of the New American Camelot, the reality is that both JFK and RFK came to power largely by sucking up to Joseph McCarthy.   JFK's Secretary of the Treasury was a hold-over from Eisenhower's administration.  JFK's chief economic accomplishment was in cutting capitol gains tax for the wealthy.  JFK "caved" to Hoover's desire to bug Martin Luther King and referred to CORE as "Pains in the asses."  Aside from a really nice speech, JFK wasn't any better in terms of Civil Rights than Eisenhower. 

And with his 64 seat Senate majority and similar majority in the house what major legislative accomplishments did Kennedy accomplish  for the 99% in his too short two years in office?  The Peace Corp?  He got that done through executive order.  The fact is that JFK, unlike Barack Obama, was lousy at getting his agenda through Congress.

Barack Obama has done more than any other President with similar majorities has done.  That is a fact that I DEFY any member of the professional left to disprove. If Barack Obama is such a sub-par President then this should be an easy way to shut me up.   If, as Taylor Marsh says, any President could do it, why didn't they?    I’ll even give a helpful link: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774721.html. 

Clinton had the same majorities and an easier opposition to start and failed to get much done in the way of progressive legislation.  Carter had 61 Dems in the Senate just as large a majority in the house  his ENTIRE term to work with and did not do much with it. 

LBJ (68 Dems) caved to the insurance companies of HIS day in making sure that Medicare only applied to those over 65.  This is when insurance companies had MUCH less pull then they have now.  And then there's the capitulation to the military industrial complex in Vietnam.
 
Every President, Democratic and Republican, compromises to get their agenda passed.  There is no President that measures up to the standards imposed on Obama.  The fact that they're holding THIS President to such a double standard is the precise reason why minority  authors such as Mellissa Harris Perry, Imani Gandy of Angry Black Lady and Spandan Chakrabarty of the People’s View think that much of the hyper- criticism coming from the left is based largely on racism.  The Professional Left cries foul at these allegations but until they explain the obvious double standard, this accusation appears valid.