Obama and the "Failure of Liberalism"

It's very satisfying for a liberal to read the likes of David Frum, former Bush administration and down-the-line conservative who has been purged from the Right for pointing out that the Republican party was getting way too extreme.  I'm sure conservatives feel similar glee in reading liberals who have turned against the Democrats, like Joe Lieberman or Dennis Miller (I'm sure there are better examples- as you can probably guess, "liberals who have been mugged" isn't my favorite genre to read).

Anyway, Frum (who still identifies himself as a conservative) this week writes:

Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right?

And in the second piece he responds to those who point out that the liberals haven't done much to help the economy recover:

My conservative friends argue that the policies of Barack Obama are responsible for the horrifying length and depth of the economic crisis.
Question: Which policies?
Obama’s only tax increases – those contained in the Affordable Care Act – do not go into effect until 2014. Personal income tax rates and corporate tax rates are no higher today than they have been for the past decade. The payroll tax has actually been cut by 2 points. Total federal tax collections have dropped by 4 points of GDP since 2007, from 18+% to 14+%, the lowest rate since the Truman administration.
If so minded, you could describe Barack Obama as the biggest tax cutter in American history.

We have not seen a major surge in federal regulation, at least by the usual rough metrics: the page count of the Federal Register has risen by less than 5% since George W. Bush’s last year in office. Trade remains as free as it was a decade ago.
While the Affordable Care Act itself will eventually have major economic consequences, most of its provisions remain only impending.
Energy prices have surged, but that’s hardly a response to administration policies. Conservatives complain about restrictions on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but on a planet that produces 63 million barrels of oil per day, a few thousand more or less from the Gulf will not much budge the price of oil. Rising oil prices are a story about Chinese and Indian consumption and Middle Eastern political instability, not about US drilling or lack thereof.
The Dodd-Frank bill does somewhat curtail the activities of some banks and investment firms. But is it seriously argued that this could be the cause?

Conservatives complain about excess government spending. Fine. But isn’t the evil of excess government spending supposed to be inflation rather than recession? And where’s the inflation?

There’s a strong case for condemning Barack Obama for the things he might have done, but did not do. He might have cut payroll taxes more and faster. He might have pushed for more expansionary Federal Reserve governors. He might have designed a better stimulus. All true. But the things he did do? Texas Gov. Rick Perry today urges us to believe that the economy is gripped by the worst slump since the Great Depression because Obama spoke disrespectfully of the owners of private jets. To which I can only say: Really? That’s the indictment? Really?

Well said.  Paul Krugman is constantly taunting the "Very Serious People" who keep predicting hyperinflation or rocketing interest rates if the US keeps borrowing, while all evidence continues to show neither happening, just as Keynesian economics predicts in a Liquidity Trap.

The biggest problem for liberals now, though, is that nobody in power is listening to us.  So a mainly Democratic government here is thoroughly on board with austerity, which economists predict will lead to a new recession.  Wall Street seems to agree this week.  And the failure of macroeconomic policy is laid on.... the liberals! Because they're the ones in power.  But since the administration is pursuing mainstream conservative policies, the Republicans have contrasted it by calling for a caricature of conservative policies that were way out on the fringes of political thought only a few short years ago.  And true liberals are left shouldering the blame for our liberal policies, which have never been implemented.

So that's Obama's real sin- no matter what policies he pursues, he must realize by now that he'll be painted as a far-out Leftist.  Yet he keeps clinging to the false notion that he can be acclaimed as a centrist.  And in the process of this futile effort he pulls the whole country way over to the Right.  Tip O'Neil wouldn't recognize the Democratic party.  There is no place for liberals to go.

Where is the liberal equivalent of George W. Bush, a politician who unapologetically sticks to principles, doesn't care if the other side hates him, and gets his base energized and voting?  Republicans are loaded with pols like that, and we don't seem to have any.  So Republicans can rule effectively and make things happen- if only their policies were better it would be great!