The attacks serve as a reminder of the through-the-looking glass political era we’re living in, in which conservatives are convinced that President Obama is a socialist, while liberals call him a corporate sellout. The right trades anecdotes about Obama’s intentional undermining of the War on Terror, while the left accuses him of callously continuing the Bush administration’s War on Terror policies. These narratives are logically incompatible, and yet they’re simultaneously dominating the national debate. All the while, incumbent Democrats decline in the polls…

For a dose of perspective, it’s worth remembering that every Democratic president in the last half-century has been accused of being insufficiently radical by the far left. Harry Truman was primaried by former FDR VP Henry Wallace, who rallied the support of socialists and left-wing labor unions on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. JFK was always distrusted by contemporary liberal groups like Americans for Democratic Action, while LBJ was torn apart by the New Left toward the end of his term for Vietnam. Jimmy Carter was called “the most conservative Democratic president since Grover Cleveland” by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and primaried by Ted Kennedy. Bill Clinton was dismissed as a corporatist, representing “Democrats for the Leisure Class” by the likes of Jesse Jackson when he ran for the presidency…

There seems to be an impulse in the far left that is anti-authoritarian to such an extent that they’re uncomfortable with the nonideological responsibilities of actual governance.