To add to the re-election headaches of Barack Obama, now he is witnessing a former professor from Harvard Law School, Roberto Unger, releasing a video in which he states that Obama “must be defeated” because he hasn’t been progressive enough.
“He has failed to advance the progressive cause in the United States,” Unger said in a video that was actually released nearly a month ago, May 22, but this weekend was disseminated to the wider world when someone unearthed Unger’s connection to Obama.
Unger, a Brazilian philosopher and politician who has taught at Harvard Law School his entire career, beginning in 1970 at age 23, is a well-known thinker and advocate for progressive causes and ideas. He twice has run for president of Brazil, has directed campaigns for progressive candidates for Brazilian president, and has served as Brazil’s Minister of Strategic Affairs.
In his video clip, Unger acknowledges that defeating Obama will mean the election of a Republican president, which could cost some “judicial and administrative appointments,” but ultimately “the risk of military adventurism” would be no worse under a Republican than under Obama, and that “the Democratic Party proposes no new direction.”
While radical progressives have been making similar claims about Obama since even before the 2008 election—that his views are far too moderate and his approach too conciliatory to make any real difference in the lives of most poor Americans—the reason Unger’s view are getting so much attention is simply because at one point in law school Obama sat in his classroom. There is no reason why anyone should assume that the man would be a supporter of the president merely because at one time Obama was the man’s student, but it makes a great story to be able to write headlines making it appear that former supporters are fleeing the president. This all feeds the current media narrative that Obama is hurting and he is in big re-election trouble.
