Speaking of disappointed followers: this precise pattern has been replicated to a tee by the Obama administration, which has split its most fervent supporters by escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, bombing Libya, and going beyond even its predecessors in asserting and defending (in court) the imperial prerogatives of the presidency. Anyone surprised by this has to be comatose: after all, the leitmotif of the Obama campaign, then and now, has been a self-proclaimed and prideful pragmatism, i.e. opposition to principled politics as such. Especially when it comes to the question of war and peace, this gives the Obama-ites maximum flexibility in the policy realm, and an advantage in making the political argument that Democrats – because of their identity as the Mommy Party – have to “overcome” their recent history of opposition to Republican wars before the electorate trusts them enough to hand them the keys to the White House.
And now that they have those keys, however temporarily, the Democrats in power have acted just like their Republican predecessors: indeed, in some horrific alternate universe, where third term President George W. Bush is in charge of US foreign policy, it is hard to imagine what Dubya is doing differently.
-- Justin Raimondo, "The Partisan Temptation" (Antiwar.com).