What Brown can do for Dems

 I've been running around with my hair on fire about Obama not fighting for the issues he ostensibly cares  about.  Now, it seems, so are some Senate Democrats: 

...Senate Dems privately lit into Obama yesterday (Thursday) at a tense caucus meeting, complaining that he was not showing enough passion and was being overly compromising in the face of Republicans who are determined to destroy him.

(Sherrod) Brown didn't comment directly on what happened at caucus, but he confirmed that the general sense among Senate Dems is that Obama needs to be more confrontational towards Republicans, in order to make the difference between the parties clearer. "The caucus broadly wants to see the president stand up and fight and make the distinction clearer than any of us have so far," Brown said.

Brown warned that reaching a compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts temporarily would only further set back Dem efforts to draw a sharp contrast with the GOP. "He needs to articulate every day that he's fighting for the broad middle class, while Republicans are for the rich," he said.

Brown also suggested it would be a setback to such efforts if Obama and Dems embrace cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as Obama's fiscal commission leaders have suggested.
"The president has to make clear whose side we're on," Brown said. "The Republicans want to privatize Social Security and cut Medicare. Democrats are on the other side, advocating for the middle class. We need to affirmatively and strongly make that contrast."

We'll see.  These are more than just words to senators like Sherrod Brown and Al Franken, who aren't afraid to make noise and break furniture to bring about progressive change, even if it means jeopardizing their careers.  As for Obama and his former colleagues in the caucus meeting? Let's hope they have similar fire to stand up against the rightward assault of the GOP and the beltway punditry.  Otherwise, we're goners.