Cenky Uygur has a must-read diary up on Daily Kos in which he lays out a very detailed critique of how the Kagan pick is a sign of the failures of the Obama presidency from a progressive perspective. Uygur makes a case that Obama simply isn’t doing enough to counteract the massive strides Bush and Cheney made to make America a more regressive country. He does so using a football analogy, similar to one I’ve been using for the last five  years:

Cheney and Bush moved the ball 80 yards down-field, whether that was on executive power, warrantless wiretapping, pre-emptive wars or just about any other issue you can think of. And Obama’s bold and brilliant response is to move the ball 10 yards in the opposite direction. Not good enough. Not remotely good enough.

The key here is that while the Republicans have made huge strides to unwind a century of government policy, the actions we are seeing from Obama are only small nibbles in the right direction. If this plays out at pace for the duration of the Obama administration, however long that is, then the Republicans will be poised to complete the job with another reactionary president who isn’t afraid to govern from his beliefs. And the consequences of that are terrifying.