Is Obama a Liberal or Moderate?

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I agree with Torie that Obama hasn't actually done anything on entitlement reform, outside of taking $500 billion out of Medicare Advantage subsidies over the next ten years, only to put that money back into the financing scheme for PPACA.  He also has signed onto raiding the Social Security stash to fund general budget priorities, which is a bad idea, of course.  Outside of this, Obama hasn't brought forward any entitlement initiatives of his own.

It is my understanding however, from the Bob Nabors-Barry Jackson email correspondence during the debt-ceiling/budget negotiations that Obama was willing to go along with pretty big entitlement cuts--for Medicare $250 billion in the first ten years and $800 billion in the decade after that, in Medicaid $110 billion in the first decade and another $250 billion in the following decade, and on Social Security he was willing to go with the chained CPI cost of living adjustment rather than raise the retirement age (the latter refusal being, um, dumb).  In any event, it's been reported that Obama had gotten Reid and Pelosi to agree in principle to back these changes.  Of course, Obama flubbed the deal when he jumped at the bare bones Gang of Six proposal, practically, it seems, after consulting almost no one. Still, if the Obama-Beohner deal had been proposed, I doubt liberals would take kindly to any of the above cuts.

All that being said, I think Obama is actually more a lefty than I had taken him to be during the '08 campaign.