I have a couple of liberal friends on Facebook who replied over there. I thought I'd share them here:

Liberal NO. 1:

Stating that MANY ON THE LEFT LARGELY REJECT GOD OR ORGANIZED RELIGION might be the most ignorant thing you have ever said Jim. Seriously? And for the record, I think the level of adoration between the Right and Reagan was just as strong, they just didn't have the internet to bloviate and pontificate on.

Liberal No. 2:

Jim, as a lefty (and a person with one of the lowest UIDs on DailyKos), I have to agree with the absolute ridiculousness of Evan Thomas's remark. I like The Pres, I think he is doing a good job but the press coverage is OUT-O-CONTROL!!!!!!!!!!

However, I do disagree with your comment that "many on the left largely reject God and organized religion?" I think a vast majority of my fellow parishioners at [my] Episcopal [church] would disagree, as well..ciao peeps.

C'mon Robb. Did I say Reagan was "God"? Did you not even see that I addressed that "irony" in the post itself.

Idolatry? The posting of photos to mark the anniversary of Reagan's death is quite different than what you well know has gone on with Obama for more than a year now. Besides ... Obama is alive. He is our current president — and has been so for, golly, 4.5 months.

Yeah. It's exactly the same. How ironic. Stupid me.

I'm not sharing the names of these commenters, all friends of mine on Facebook, but I thought I'd share their thoughts:

FROM A LIBERAL

"...the farther left one is the more likely one is to have not only voted for Obama, but adore him in an unhealthy and largely unprecedented way in this country."

False.

Obama is a moderately left of center pragmatic neo-liberal. While folks on the historic left (not the moderate position now called "left" in this hard-right skewed country) may have breathed a sigh of relief when he was elected, but that is only flattery by comparison. There is quite a lot of critique of Obama from the left. But since the historic left has been shut out of the public discourse by corporate (that's right, "whoring", not "political") media, you won't hear those criticisms.

By the way...it was hard to type I was laughing so hard at that picture! Do you know where that came from? I hope the photographer was intending to be funny, otherwise it's pathetic!

NEXT COMMENT, FROM A CONSERVATIVE

A liberal may or may not reject God or organized religion.
Liberalism rejects God and organized religion.

And Obama is not a moderately left of center pragmatic neo-liberal. He is a far left liberal. Far left because he believes the Constitution is an obstacle to Government being able to 'help' people. He has said so clearly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkpdNtTgQNM

NEXT, FROM A LIBERAL

Couldn't resist. A quick google search of George W. Bush and God turned up more than a few results of W. claiming that God was speaking through him and to him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. I like this one in particular since the graphic is eerily similar to the one you posted:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

Which is worse, obviously biased reporters (whom any thinking person can easily dismiss) bestowing deity status on the President, or the President himself claiming a special Holy Status?

And, yes, I do reject the narrowly defined God the Religious Right worships -the one that is more concerned with guns, discriminating against homosexuals and messing around in a woman's reproductive rights. But, man, I love me some Jesus that hung out with the sinners and detritus of society, preaching peace, pacifism, ending poverty and showing TONS of compassion.

FROM ANOTHER LIBERAL

Wow, that youtube clip was an excursion to sillytown. First of all, there was no context for what was meant by "redistribution" except as was implied by the editor, whom its hard to see as trying to give Obama's actual view.

What was certainly clear was that you had a guy who thought it wasn't a good idea for courts to make these huge substantive... Read More legal changes if you could go through the legislature. That sounds pretty democratic to me. The thing about making changes administratively, first of all, sounds like there was a chunk of dialog cut out of it that might have been helpful for clarification. Second, "administratively" needn't imply that changes are mandated unilaterally by the executive branch (he's not Cheney, after all). A problem could be an administrative problem for which congress legislates a guide, and then the relevant agencies fine tune with intra-agency policy - this is an entirely unproblematic sense of working "administratively", and likely what he meant.

Also, what is supposed to be redistributed, how, and how much? If I heard right, the example he gave in the clip was bringing the level of resources at minority-populated schools up to parity with white-populated schools. What's nefarious about that? Equal opportunity under the law is not so radical.

If he was such a leftist there is no way that he would have been such a fervent supporter of Bush's plan to take YOUR money and give it to billionaire criminals (in spirit if not by legal definition). If he was such a leftist, our troops would be pouring out of the Middle East, Afghanistan included. So even if he believes in a Workers Paradise, he is no revolutionary, or even a dogmatist. He isn't even talking about single-payer healthcare anymore, if I understand it right. Apparently if national healthcare happens, there will still be a place for the moneychangers in the system. This sounds like pragmatic compromise to me, not far left dogmatism.

FROM THE CONSERVATIVE AGAIN

Obama's words speak for themselves. Remember Joe the plumber? Its better for everyone when we spread the wealth around?

The is the problem with liberalism. It can never speak clearly on its intentions. It must always cloud its means and intentions, otherwise it fails to convince.

'Redistributive change' is a term that was and is used as a euphemism. What other context is 'redistribute' or 'redistributive' mainly used in? Obama is supposedly a great speaker. Is he is intentionally clouding his meaning? Why?

Obama thinks the Warren court was not radical. That's because he is a radical and therefore the court did not go far enough for him.

'..it wasn't a good idea for courts to make these huge substantive legal changes if you could go through the legislature.' But what happens when the legislature doesn't give you what you want? The legislature won't give the radical minority what they want, so they have and will always fill the bench with 'emphatic' judges.

Couldn't resist.
George Bush quotes are third hand:

'George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.'

Obama's words are his own, spoken by him, and recorded.

'If he was such a leftist there is no way he would have been such a fervent supporter of Bush's plan to take YOUR money and give it to billionaire criminals '

Obama EXPANDED the program to include Chrystler and GM. And then what happened? Chrystler goes into bankrupcy, and how did the Obama administration handel that:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/bankruptcy-atto.html

Then afterward, the Union gets ~60% of chrystler stock. Looks like Obama delivered the company to the workers to me. Why didn't the Taxpayers get the stock since we paid for it?

Same with GM.

Obama says he doesn't want to run the automotive business, then he tells us how he will run the automotive business.

Then there is the reason we are in this mess in the first place:

Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac. Two liberal institutions that were created and defended by liberal democrats used to redistibute wealth in the form of mortgages.

AND, FINALLY, FROM ME

Seriously, [person]. You take the third-hand account of a Palestinian foreign minister published in a fervently anti-Bush Guardian and say that is proof of an accurate quote from George W. Bush? C'mon.

Obama's quote on that radio interview are not taken out of context. There's no fancy editing and trickery. Obama states, quite clearly, that he thinks the Warren Court was not radical enough because it didn't make clear that the Constitution not only designates what the government "can't do to you" but what the government "must do on your behalf." That is a wildly radical (and leftist) interpretation of the Constitution — which the founders wrote specifically to restrict the power of government over our lives, not designate all sorts of things it "must do" on our behalf.... Read More

That's what he meant when he said the Warren Court was not "radical" enough.