Flamewars are sprouting up all over the blogosphere between those who are disappointed by Barack Obama’s appointments so far and those who feel we should give Obama the benefit of the doubt.

TomP made an excellent contribution to this argument at Daily Kos today: Whatever Obama does is okay? This is the netroots?

His starting point is Obama’s decision to keep Robert Gates as secretary of defense, even though highlighting Obama’s opposition to the war was a central point of his campaign strategy during the primaries.

He also discusses frustration in labor circles that Obama did not introduce his secretary of labor as part of the government’s economics team:

It’s a mindset, folks.  Economics is business, and labor is not included.  Like physical resources (oil, steel), workers are human resources.  Inputs.  Taking workers seriously is a big deal.  I look at EFCA.  That is the litmus test for me.  Barack Obama’s Labor Day message:

Here’s a key part:

It’s time we had a President who will stand up for working men and women by building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but work and the workers who create it.

snip

It’s time you had a President who honors organized labor – who’s walked on picket lines; who doesn’t choke on the word “union”; who lets our unions do what they do best and organize our workers; and who will finally make the Employee Free Choice Act the law of the land.

I think he will.  But if he wavers, I’ll criticize.  EFCA is the road to growing unions and a strong progressive movement. It will take an epic battle to succeed.  

Obama is going to do a big stimulus to save capitalism.  He’s right on that and even conservative economists agree.  That’s all good, but that’s an emergency measure, not fundmental change.  It may have good things in it.  Time will tell.  Green jobs is a good way to go and so is building infrastructure.  These are necessary investments to save capitalism.  We face the possibility of a Great Depression and they will be doing all they can to prevent that. Good.

But my point is not the substantive criticism of Obama’s appointments.  Those people may constrain Obama’s policy choices by restricting the agenda or they may not.  We haven’t seen the policies, so there is no reason to panic.  Indeed, some appointments may reflect Obama’s policies, i.e. he’s more centrist then some people here think.  Time will tell.

My point is that if the so-called “progressive netroots” is to be anything, it must critically analyze both its opponents in the Republican Party and its favorites in the Democratic Party.  Criticizing an Obama decision, with civility and on the merits, is the highest form of support for Obama.  Do you think he really expects or wants abject, unthinking support and deference? I don’t. He seems committed to empirical testing and criticism of assumptions. I agree with Obama sometimes and disagree with him other times. That’s to be expected.  

To fall into line with any decision by Obama is to betray ourselves, to betray Barack Obama, and to make a mockery of everything the so-called “reality-based community” in the netroots stands for.

I think it’s helpful for the netroots to raise hell if they are not happy with Obama’s early choices. I believe bloggers helped steer Obama away from picking Evan Bayh as a running mate, and some people think science bloggers derailed the rumored appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

What do you think, Bleeding Heartland readers? Should those who voted for Obama (and in many cases donated and volunteered for him) wait to see what policies he will implement before criticizing him?