One of President Obama’s former Harvard professors isย calling for the president’s defeat in November, releasing a scathing video inย which he accuses the president of abandoning America’s workers while pushing aย policy of “food stamps.”
The video by Brazilian scholar and politician Roberto Ungerย serves as an indictment of both parties. But in it, Unger says Obama must beย defeated in order for the Democratic Party to restore itself “as the vehicle forย the progressive alternative in the country.”
Obama, he said, has not advanced that cause.
“President Obama must be defeated in the coming election.ย He has failed to advance the progressive cause in the United States,” he said inย the eight-minute video, titled “Beyond Obama” and posted toย YouTube
.
“He has spent trillions of dollars to rescue the moneyedย interests and left workers and homeowners to their own devices,” Ungerย said.
Obama, when he attended Harvard, took two classes withย Unger — Jurisprudence and Reinventing Democracy, according to David Remnick’sย book “The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.” Unger continued toย correspond with Obama via BlackBerry going into the presidential campaign,ย Remnick reported, though Unger said he never became Obama’s “friend” and keptย his distance from the then-candidate out of concern that Unger’s own “leftist”ย leanings might do “harm” to Obama.
In the recent web video, Unger’s accusations against hisย former student become increasingly caustic. Toward the end, the professor claimsย Obama pursued health care reform at the expense of economic recovery.
“He has subordinated the broadening of economic andย educational opportunity to the important but secondary issue of access to healthย care in the mistaken belief that he would be spared a fight,” Unger said. “Heย has disguised his surrender with an empty appeal to tax justice.”
He went on to say Obama “reduced justice to charity” whileย embodying a policy of “financial confidence and food stamps” and a “politics ofย hand-holding.”
Unger wasn’t exactly thrilled about the thought of a Mittย Romney presidency, either. He warned that should Obama be defeated, “there willย be a cost for his defeat in judicial and administrative appointments.”
But, he said, the risk of “military adventurism” would beย the same under either Obama or Romney.
