Vile behavior by Congressional Republicans in 2009 pushed me to the left out of empathy for our President.
It seems to me that Pubs get around to accusing every Dem president of being treasonous. But Obama's case does strike me as disturbingly different. I was originally an Obama supporter, of course, but don't like a number of things that have happened under his watch or some of the policies he has intentionally pursued or not pursued. But it's still hard for me not to personally empathize with him a lot. The forms of political and popular resistance to him have often been quite ugly. If Obama had been a center-right GOP member, or even, I can't help but think, a center-left president as white as Clinton, I think the general estimation of his presidency in the country right now would be quite different. Had only these three things, the Dow rising several thousand points, unemployment dropping as much as it has, and the country's #1 enemy being eliminated, happened in the first five years of any center-right or center-left white president, almost everything else would be explained away with a shrug, his job approval would be in the mid 60's and his party members would be carving granite memorials to him already. As it is, Dems are running away from him in the midterms and Pubs vilify him. For me, it's not pleasant to watch.
