[dnautics]

Can you give an example in Obama's political tenure when he had ever done anything consistent with that sentiment or that strategy?

Politically, Obama's heroes are the progressives of the Wilsonian and Roosevelt era. Wilson jailed Eugene Debs for sedition, and ironically it took the era's conservative firebrand (H L Mencken) rabble-rousing about it in exactly that spirit and eventually Harding (not exactly a socialist) commuted Debs' sentence.

For that matter: Can you think of an example when any politician or political figure in power in the US in recent memory has done something like that? I'm not comprehensively knowledgeable about US politics, but the only one I can think of is Clarence Thomas voting against the majority in Texas V Lawrence, where he said he was opposed to laws forbidding gay sex, but he didn't think the supreme court should rule on it, and he would vote to strike down the law if he were in the Texas State Legislature.

[nostrademons]

H.L. Mencken wasn't really a conservative firebrand, more of an iconoclast. His position then could be likened to that of Trey Parker & Matt Stone today, i.e. shits on everything, liberal and conservative, for the lulz, and occasionally makes some very perceptive social commentary in the process.

[dnautics]

that's very fair, although I would say he was more sophisticated than Matt & Trey, and his favorite enemy was FDR.