On Obama-bashing.

• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

Ruth Conniff was absolutely right in her editorial decrying President Obama's lack of meaningful political leadership, but the problem is that she didn't go far enough ("A Deficit of Leadership," March issue).

Since the harmful Presidency of Ronald Reagan, we have had two Democratic Presidents, both of them elected solely on the basis of having more pleasing personalities than their Republican opponents. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned largely (although not entirely) as progressives, and then governed like warmed-over Republicans.

In Obama's case, the situation is dire; he seems to be doing nothing more than wring his hands, while occasionally remarking that he certainly does wish that the Republicans would somehow come together with the Democrats to get something done.

Meanwhile, the chances that the party of Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich will suddenly be going along with Barack Obama, or with anyone else slightly to the left of Attila the Hun, are exactly nil, but Obama doesn't seem to believe that. This is naive on his part.

As a lifelong (nearly seven decades) liberal Democrat, I call upon all progressives to come out of their terrible case of denial, and recognize the truth: The Democratic Party is dead. It has sold out to the same lobbyists to which the Republicans have been willing and eager slaves for more than a century.

The people currently in government and calling themselves Democrats are traitors to a heritage that includes FDR and LBJ. The latter was a man who got Vietnam all wrong, but who was such a virtuoso of domestic policy that his civil rights achievements may never be equaled, let alone surpassed.

We may as well recognize that the Obama Administration is already a failed one, and begin to come up with some sort of Progressive Populist Party to take the place of the horrible two-party system under which we currently suffer.

David Pino

Wimberley, Texas

I am very disappointed at The Progressive's lack of engagement on the health care debate. Progressive physicians have fought for years not only to expand coverage and for single payer financing, but also for systemic reform of health care. Ruth Conniff suggests that cuts to Medicare should be...