I know this is a late response but I happened upon your post appended to a current OP critiquing Cornell West. Both Cornell West and his sidekick Tavis Smiley seem to have staked out a vendetta against the President over a so called personal affront.
West seems upset over not getting an invite to the 2013 Inauguration even though he'd been bashing Obama for much of his first term. Smiley, a well-entrenched Clintonista, got his knickers in a bunch in '08 because the busily campaigning candidate Obama couldn't make one of his televised "State of Black America" panel discussions (he offered to send Michelle, no slouch herself, but that wasn't good enough for Smiley). Smiley soon lost his popularity in black America when the word got out of his nose being out of joint over such silliness. I personally think Smiley also was upset when Obama got the nomination over Hillary. IMO he saw his imagined ambassadorship or cabinet post in the Hillary administration go up in smoke.
Anyway, I said all that to say that you are so right on about how we should not have expected extreme lefty progressive/liberal policy out of the Obama administration. He was never that, and if he was he wouldn't have been viable enough a candidate to continue after the '08 the Iowa primary. He be in the failed candidate history dustbin.
Hell, a white extreme lefty progressive/liberal wasn't going to get the nomination, much less win the election, with those stated policy positions either so for many to think a black candidate could take those positions and win is not realistic and a tad naive.
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