Rush Limbaugh has been saying that Limbaugh "trashed his country\' when he was in Europe and that he is a "radical leftist>" I guess that means that Rush Limbaugh is not a reliable source of information or is certainly resorting to desperate attacks to hide how little apart Obama and McCain are on so many issues, particularly foreign policy.

Wow - that\'s an awesome catch, RR! Yes, he refuses to  "look back" on our crimes but lectures Europeans to look back on how we (supposedly -see below) saved their butts.  

Never mind that:

 1.  The Soviets gave more than anyone (25 million dead) to defeat Hitler and

2.  US policymakers helped enable the rise of European fascism that culminated in Hitler\'s march of terror. As is apparent from the relevant historical literature, the US watched with approval as Fascist darkness set over Europe during the inter-war years. American policymakers saw Italian, Spanish, German and other strains of the European fascist disease as a welcome counter to the Soviet threat - essentially the demonstration Russia made of the possibilities for modernization (industrialization, urbanization, and nation- building) outside the capitalist world system - and anti-capitalist social democracy within Western European states.

In 1937, the US State Department\'s European Division argued that European fascism was compatible with America\'s economic interests. This key diplomatic agency reported that fascism\'s rise was a natural response of "the rich and middle classes" to the threat posed by "dissatisfied masses," who, with the "the example of the Russian Revolution before them," might "swing to the left." Fascism, the State Department argued, "must succeed or the masses, this time reinforced by the disillusioned middle class, will again turn to the left." The French Popular Front government of the middle 1930s was an example of the popular left threat that made fascism acceptable to American officials before Hitler really launched his drive for a New World Order. It is true that fascism became an avowed US enemy during WWII. This did not occur, however, until fascism, holding power in two leading imperialist states, directly attacked American interests. American policymakers intervened against fascism on the basis of perceived national self-interest, not out of any particular concern for the human rights of the French or, for that matter, European Jews or anyone else.

After the war, America\'s accommodation of European and Asian fascism in the inter-war period became the model for US Third World policy. In the name of resisting supposedly expansionist Soviet influence and anti-capitalism, the US sponsored, funded, equipped, and provided political cover for numerous Third World fascist regimes. In doing so, it protected and enlisted numerous Nazi War criminals (e.g. Klaus Barbie) perceived to have special skills in anti-leftist counter-insurgency.

So,

Iraq: a "mistake" we shouldn\'t look backwards at.

WW II: something Europeans should look backwards at, and, recalling how we saved them, refrain from criticisng us.

This guy is so full of it.  Anyone with sense knows hindsight is anything but 20/20 -- we look back selectively with our ideological blinders on -- and Barack Obama is determined to be as blind as anyone else, George W. Bush not excluded.

It\'s a little complicated.  In issue polls, measuring where people are on specific policy areas (health care, miltiarism, minimum wage and on and on) and areas of social concern (corporate power, social justiice, decent international behavior)  a U.S. majority is well to the left of both partieis.  But in ideological self-identification they are sadly in the middle. Furthermore, there\'s a big difference between telling a polllster how you feel on an issue (itself a fairly passive and private act) and being ready to fight for something progressive like single payer health care or union organzing rights or troops out now and many Americans are progressive couch potatoes.  Part of all the seeming paradox is that there is so incredibly little Left instiutional life and political presence to capture and articulate and give identity to left issue positions.  

So sadly Marc is right to say that the people are to the left of the politicians (including Obama) if by that we mean issue positions and Jonas is right to say the playing field is in the middle under the rules of the corporate-managed game.

I recently did a very heavily researched and annotated ZNet piece that disagrees fundamentally with Jonas\' line (a common belief) that Obama is "progressive-rooted" (I agree instead with Dr. Adolph Reed Jr. that B.O. was conservative/neoliberal from the start) in his past history  I don\'t think Obama needs to go as far as he has to the right on things like FISA or with this No Apology line or with his denial in Berlin that the U.S. might at least be "part of what has gone wrong in the world" (how could it not be?).  Frederic has a very good poiny/analogy on the surgeon  (and I agree with his implication that the U.S. is more butcher than doctor on the world stage) I think.  And I wonder why try to climb the political order when and if the rules make one go to the center and even the right.  Maybe it would be better for someone with Obama\'s gifts to follow in the very different  path of Dr. Martin Luther King, who refused to run for the presidency(1967/68)  because he felt that would work against his project of radical societal reconstruction.

Obama would be shooting himself in the foot (and head) if he did anything other than what he\'s doing now. He\'s a masterful politician and indeed a highly skilled player. All I want to say is that because the alternative is worse, and there are positive aspects to the Obama campaign worth articulating instead of the hashing out of the same criticisms (though I agree mostly, but not totally). We do need to change the game. Obama is a progressive-rooted, Chicago-style opportunist (disclosure: never been to Chicago, want to, but have heard of the politics there) who has chosen to play that game. The unfortunate reality is that we have a wacked-out political culture that has shifted "the center" too far rightward; it is therefore sort of a necessary evil for Obama to run toward that "center". He\'s running for president, and so he -- like any player who has a viable chance -- must appear to represent the big "middle", where a majority of our countrymen are. As Bob Simpson said, We\'re not talking about electing a messiah (to become a vanguard of the left, I\'d add).

Well, it\'s election rhetoric in part.  Their maxim at this point is to give the Swfit- and (Rev.) Wright-boaters of the GOP and Fox "News" crowd nothing to work with in claiming that Obama is a dangerous "anti-American leftist."  And frankly in a tactical "in it to win it"  sense Team Obama is playing the game right.

The deeper problem is the game, of which Obama is an astue player.  

If you see the "Obma Does Berlin" piece I linked in the first sentence, you\'ll see Barack lecturing Europeans to let go even the notion that America might be "part of what has gone wrong in the world."  How could the most powerful nation in the world not be least "part of what has gone wrong in the world" ?! 

I actually think that Berlin comment is more over the top. 

What I love about his argument is that, because the US is a force of good in general (obviously arguable, but let\'s follow his logic), the US has nothing to apologize for.

By Obama\'s reasoning, a doctor that has performed thousands of successful surgeries has nothing to apologize for when she drunkenly performs and kills someone in a routine procedure.

Only in the parlance of American liberalism can someone say that mistakes have been made but those mistakes don\'t deserve apology, to SOMEONE at least.