Chris Hayes has an interesting insight into liberals' relationship with Obama in his column this week:
For several years ACORN, CRL and Congressional progressives have pushed for a reform to bankruptcy law that would allow judges to modify mortgage terms on a primary residence. On the campaign trail Obama had signaled support for the proposal, but since becoming president, [ACORN's Austin] King notes, "he's rolled us on this twice. On the first TARP debate, he said we should not include bankruptcy protection. Then on the stimulus, he said we should not include bankruptcy protections. And a lot of us worried that his objections were more substantive than procedural." In his housing speech, however, Obama finally made his support for the reform clear; the House, at the time of this writing, is poised to bring it to the floor.
I'd kind of assumed Obama had always planned to propose the bankruptcy change as part of his housing plan--why risk a fight on something unrelated when passing a stimulus or getting more bank money is already controversial enough. I know a lot of liberal groups come down differently on this tactical question. But it's kind of a telling sign of their distrust that they didn't take Obama at his word on this.
On the other hand, if you wanted to know if the left distrusts Obama, I guess you could have just asked them.
--Noam Scheiber