“I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on [gay] issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away,” the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan wrote last week, dismissing Obama’s pledge to end the "Don’t Ask Don’t Tell" policy as “toilet paper.”
Maddow accused Obama of doing a “blatant 180” on military commissions. On issues like the wiretapping suits, some critics have suggested Obama is even worse than Bush.
Mindful of those concerns, Obama aides invited about half a dozen left-leaning organizations to a White House meeting Wednesday to discuss the Supreme Court pick. At the session, which lasted about an hour, groups such as People for the American Way, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Partnership for Women and Families offered their views on the criteria Obama should use to make his choice, according to participants who asked not to be identified. However, no names of potential candidates were discussed, they said. Neither Obama nor White House Counsel Greg Craig attended the meeting, the sources said.
The meeting came one day after the White House publicly expressed irritation at some lobbying—apparently that of gay, Latino and women’s activists publicly calling for a nominee from one or more of those groups. ““I don’t think that the lobbying of interest groups will help,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday. “I think in many ways lobbying can – and will –be counterproductive.”
Most of the names floated in the press as possible replacements for Justice David Souter have been well received by liberal groups. However, Obama aides have repeatedly noted that some names under active consideration have not been aired publicly. Liberal activists chafed at a report in POLITICO last week that the White House is considering Jim Comey, a No. 2 official at the Bush Justice Department. Some Obama aides apparently think Comey would be a viable choice because he stood up to the White House over wiretapping and criticized what he saw as efforts to politicize the Justice Department.
“He was deputy attorney general serving in Bush’s administration. He came in with the Bushies. What makes you think he’d be just an inch or two more to the center than [Chief Justice] Roberts?” Brittain asked. “I’d be greatly disappointed.”
The left’s leader for many past fights for and against Supreme Court nominees, Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice, declined to discuss specific candidates, but said she’s hoping for a nominee who will be a “strong voice…and who believes in justice for all and not just for a few.”
Aron said Obama shouldn’t worry too much about how the right will assess the nomination. “My sense is that this president is enjoying great popularity, is an effective communicator and should pick the candidate of his choice,” she said. “This is a legacy issue for him.”
The current discontent with Obama among some on the left is not evenly distributed among liberal groups. Advocates for health care and the environment tend to be the most enthusiastic about the new president’s efforts. Immigrants’ rights groups are wary, while civil libertarians and human rights activists seem to be the most dejected.
Michael Meyers of the New York Civil Rights Coalition said many Obama sup
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