August 16, 2010 1:57PM 

# The Professional Left 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

As a former conservative (and a former leftist; I got around), I have noticed that the mainstream media often use the term “ultra-conservative” but rarely apply any equivalent term to extremists on the Left. (I use Left/​leftist because I mean to reclaim the term “liberal” for libertarians.) Evidently, there are no left-wing extremists, only right-wing extremists.

But maybe President Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs gave the mainstream media a term they can use: “the professional left.” [Venting](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/10/robert-gibbs-and-the-professional-left/) about these left-wing extremists in his own party, Gibbs said:

> They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon.

President Obama has repeatedly stated his [preference](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9679) for a single-payer health care system, such as they have in Canada. Does that make him a semi-professional leftist?

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).