Obama has done a terrible job so far.

[kthx]

Doesn't mean he is a good president, because he gets votes due to his race and abs.

[cash.MONay]

OK I'm kinda lost...I was talking about Obama Girl and your talking about him being black and having abs. Did I miss something?

[kthx]

Sigh.. pictures of Obama on tits doesn't make him a good president, does that make more sense to you imbecile?

[Lock]

It is people like wark that put the U.S. to shame. I see people like you everyday where I live and I honestly feel sorry for them. Your posts get worse and worse, and more boring. It sucks that the U.S. has the image it does because of all the jackass Warks running around. A lot of us do not have his ideals but the world only sees the bad shit.

[cash.MONay]

Maybe some people dont know who Obama Girl is.

http://obamagirl.com/

[Ephemeral]

My opinion has that Obama is not done a good job so far, simply put he has blown setting expectations correctly. It is currently fair to hold him to the increase in unemployment, but only because he used unemployment numbers to support passing the first stimulus plan. He plainly came out and said the congress needed to move quickly and pass the first stimulus plan because it would have an immediate positive effect on the sagging unemployment numbers. He gave numbers, his numbers have not happened. He blew it by setting everyone's expectations wrong.

And just to add to the thread's earlier 'global warming' comments, the single largest contributing factor to global warming, is the deforestation of the Brazilian forests. Between the slash/burning and lost of natural cooling that large forests contribute, addressing this issue is easily the single largest impact humans can have in attempting to reverse the warming trend. Other current reductions measures, like some Euro countries have mandated through laws, appear to be working. But if you look closer at the numbers, the reduction in carbon emissions from these countries are mostly due to the industrial sector slow down due to the global recession. Once the global economy heats back up, so will the earth.

[kthx]

Faggots like lock who care what the Eurotrash of the world think about them is the reason we are headed towards socialism in the first place. I personally couldn't give a fuck less what some whining pussies in Euroland think about my ideals/the ideals that made America the most powerful nation on the earth. While they were all being progressive and trendy, Germany nearly wiped most of the countries in Europe off the map until the hated, idealistic America came jumping in to save their pathetic asses. So I would rather be hated and not be a giant gaping pussy than be loved by their terrible socialistic system and say why why why later on when China decides that we have abused them economically for long enough.

[Epinephrine]

My opinion has that Obama is not done a good job so far, simply put he has blown setting expectations correctly. It is currently fair to hold him to the increase in unemployment, but only because he used unemployment numbers to support passing the first stimulus plan. He plainly came out and said the congress needed to move quickly and pass the first stimulus plan because it would have an immediate positive effect on the sagging unemployment numbers. He gave numbers, his numbers have not happened. He blew it by setting everyone's expectations wrong.

And just to add to the thread's earlier 'global warming' comments, the single largest contributing factor to global warming, is the deforestation of the Brazilian forests. Between the slash/burning and lost of natural cooling that large forests contribute, addressing this issue is easily the single largest impact humans can have in attempting to reverse the warming trend. Other current reductions measures, like some Euro countries have mandated through laws, appear to be working. But if you look closer at the numbers, the reduction in carbon emissions from these countries are mostly due to the industrial sector slow down due to the global recession. Once the global economy heats back up, so will the earth.

Hey look an actual good post in this forum!

Eph, I agree with you. I think that Obama has been disappointing so far not because he actually has been disappointing, but because expectations were vastly too high and he has done little to lower them with his rhetoric.

I remember reading an article during the election about Obama during his Harvard days. Basically the entire black students union campaigned hard for him to be the president of the Harvard Law Review, and when he finally gets elected, he appoints most of the officers from the white, rich guys instead of the blacks. Everyone felt betrayed, but Obama's reasoning of doing it was to be inclusive, and also to make sure that everyone was represented (after all Harvard law is full of white rich guys).

If you look at Obama's actual platforms, he has always been about non-partisanship but mixed in with a bit too much 'hope'. People ended up confusing this with the fact that Obama would ram through any of the left-wing policies that they championed, but Obama was never about this (considering he was the most right-wing Democratic candidate this year).

Consider the fact that during the stimulus bill, Obama went far out of his way to please Republicans by severely weakening the bill, but yet even then the vast majority of Republic congressmen and senators voted against it. This pattern has continued over and over. Obama tries really hard to find middle ground, and really hard to please everyone, but then in the end the actual support doesn't change within Congress, and in the end he gets a bill that is so weakened that it becomes ineffectual.

If you look at how the healthcare bill is progressing in Congress, and how the new global warming bill has already been written, there's so many loopholes that it's hard to say whether or not these bills will really do much in the longterm. The good thing is that for global warming, it's probably easy to keep amending the bill in the future, but for healthcare, once it's set I have a feeling that's the system America will have to live with for decades to come. And Obama's approach (basically do nothing in public and let congress write the bill) virtually ensures special interests will win big time, and the only reason Obama is doing it is because he tries way too hard to please everyone.


Of course it's too early to tell in the grand scheme of this presidency. Assuming he doesn't do any MAJOR fuckups and that the Republicans continue to be as useless as they have been in the last 6 months, Obama may be looking at 8 years. Perhaps by year 5-6 he would have changed the culture of American politics enough by sheer post-partisanship and sheer force of his personality that good things really will start happening... who knows.


The other question of course is, if someone else were president, would they have done a better job? Obama is working under a LOT of constraints. As much as the democrats have a huge majority (and now 60 senators), they have their own super left-wing branch that they have to please. As well there are future political considerations for next elections to consider so they cannot go too left-wing or there will be a backlash. As well, until now Republicans had enough senators to filibusterer, so their grievances must be taken into account even if it only gets that ONE senator on board.

No matter who was president constraints would exist, and would anyone else have done a better job? Would anyone else have made decisions as smart once you consider the constraints of Washington? Hard to say.

[kthx]

Consider the fact that during the stimulus bill, Obama went far out of his way to please Republicans by severely weakening the bill, but yet even then the vast majority of Republic congressmen and senators voted against it. This pattern has continued over and over. Obama tries really hard to find middle ground, and really hard to please everyone, but then in the end the actual support doesn't change within Congress, and in the end he gets a bill that is so weakened that it becomes ineffectual.

If you look at how the healthcare bill is progressing in Congress, and how the new global warming bill has already been written, there's so many loopholes that it's hard to say whether or not these bills will really do much in the longterm. The good thing is that for global warming, it's probably easy to keep amending the bill in the future, but for healthcare, once it's set I have a feeling that's the system America will have to live with for decades to come. And Obama's approach (basically do nothing in public and let congress write the bill) virtually ensures special interests will win big time, and the only reason Obama is doing it is because he tries way too hard to please everyone.

http://forums.trenchwars.org/showpos...&postcount=126

Moral of the story : Everything the American government tries to do ends up failing and costing the taxpayers millions of dollars, yet it stays alive because the government can't go bankrupt due to being able to create however much money it needs to pay for the things it thinks it needs that are currently failing. If you promise everyone in America fifty million dollars as a campaign slogan, and actually go through with it, bread is going to cost a fifty thousand dollars, and milk is going to cost a hundred thousand dollars. The government is chock full of fail with its programs, companies, and ideas, which is why most intelligent American's don't support the government having more power in private sector businesses and/or global warming rulings.

[kthx]

The government entering into your private sector turned your countries medical care into a second rate at best industry.

America hasn't had it happen to us yet so we are still have the best health care in the world.

The only difference is you somehow feel better about yours because now the homeless alcoholics have a card that they can use to go get their stomachs filled with charcoal.

-----

The same thing is going to happen with global warming (fake) bills being passed, it is going to turn America into a second rate country for Industry like it did to Europe.

[Ephemeral]

Epi,
In short, what is the value of a pragmatic politician? A pragmatic politician seems only to never satisfy the other party or his own party. Being middle-of-the-road, all around good guy grows old on politicians in this country because it doesn’t sell newspapers or news channel commercials. Who is at fault for this? It is simply a mirror of our society, the problem is us, all of us. It often feels like what the general public really wants is someone who is out towards either end of the political scale, someone who will make headlines. Obama is certainly not that person.
eph

PS
I agree with most of what you wrote but would also add this. All politicians are 'old, rich, white guys', both Republicans and Democrats. This is why I eschew the Democratic party, at least the Republicans admit they are crusty old white guys. (For those might miss my point, I am not talking about skin color or gender, I am talking about living a certain lifestyle.) For me, nothing comes off more insincere than some politician talking about ‘a chicken in every pot’ and then getting in his limo and driving away. This is no better (and maybe worse) than a guy standing up and saying 'screw those poor people, I want to make myself richer.' Perhaps what is needed is a politician who would say, 'I am a part of the problem'.

[ConcreteSchlyrd]

If you're interested, there's a good article up on the New York Review of Books by Arnold Relman that (at least to me) seems like it makes a lot of sense, at least as far as it's topic: comprehensive health care reform.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22798

[genocidal]

Epi,
In short, what is the value of a pragmatic politician? A pragmatic politician seems only to never satisfy the other party or his own party. Being middle-of-the-road, all around good guy grows old on politicians in this country because it doesn’t sell newspapers or news channel commercials. Who is at fault for this? It is simply a mirror of our society, the problem is us, all of us. It often feels like what the general public really wants is someone who is out towards either end of the political scale, someone who will make headlines. Obama is certainly not that person.
eph

PS
I agree with most of what you wrote but would also add this. All politicians are 'old, rich, white guys', both Republicans and Democrats. This is why I eschew the Democratic party, at least the Republicans admit they are crusty old white guys. (For those might miss my point, I am not talking about skin color or gender, I am talking about living a certain lifestyle.) For me, nothing comes off more insincere than some politician talking about ‘a chicken in every pot’ and then getting in his limo and driving away. This is no better (and maybe worse) than a guy standing up and saying 'screw those poor people, I want to make myself richer.' Perhaps what is needed is a politician who would say, 'I am a part of the problem'.

Yeah I guess politicians should give all their money to poor people in order to truly serve their constituents.

[Epinephrine]

Epi,
In short, what is the value of a pragmatic politician? A pragmatic politician seems only to never satisfy the other party or his own party. Being middle-of-the-road, all around good guy grows old on politicians in this country because it doesn’t sell newspapers or news channel commercials. Who is at fault for this? It is simply a mirror of our society, the problem is us, all of us. It often feels like what the general public really wants is someone who is out towards either end of the political scale, someone who will make headlines. Obama is certainly not that person.
eph

It IS a huge problem in society that we cannot appreciate the middle of the road guy who just picks the best possible choice by thinking things out really well and doing what's possible. Those politicians really don't stand out much, but then again, I may argue that people do appreciate such people when they do appear in certain cases even if it doesn't stand out.

Our provincial premier in Ontario (our equivalent of governor but with far more power... the premier is the leader of the majority party in the provincial parliament and as such basically runs the province during a majority government with virtually no need to listen to the opposition), Dalton McGuinty is probably the most boring guy you can think of to be our province's leader. He's boring to watch on TV, boring to read about, and doesn't ever do or say anything controversial and is very middle of the road (at least for Ontario). He's taken a ton of very unpopular positions but which if you think about it, had to be done (i.e. raising taxes by quite a lot after campaigning not to because we were $5.6 billion in deficit, or creating a greenbelt around Toronto to stop sprawl much to the complaints of developers and farmers looking to cash out, or pushing back promise to close our coal power plants because we can't ramp up nuclear fast enough).

People rewarded him with an even bigger majority in the last elections regardless.

I think if Obama really does do the 'right things' which make sense to most people as good things for society, then people will see that even if it's not controversial or headline grabbing. The problem is, I don't think Obama has the power to do all he wants due to the nature of the US political system (in Canada the Prime Minister in a majority government is far, far, far more powerful than the president in terms of political power in the country) and due to his own nature of trying to please everyone too hard.

PS
I agree with most of what you wrote but would also add this. All politicians are 'old, rich, white guys', both Republicans and Democrats. This is why I eschew the Democratic party, at least the Republicans admit they are crusty old white guys. (For those might miss my point, I am not talking about skin color or gender, I am talking about living a certain lifestyle.) For me, nothing comes off more insincere than some politician talking about ‘a chicken in every pot’ and then getting in his limo and driving away. This is no better (and maybe worse) than a guy standing up and saying 'screw those poor people, I want to make myself richer.' Perhaps what is needed is a politician who would say, 'I am a part of the problem'.

Reminds me of how people found the old campaign video of Tom Daschle of him bragging about driving his own car to work

[404 Not Found]

Yeah I guess politicians should give all their money to poor people in order to truly serve their constituents.

Let us look at AIG for example of Govt asswipes actions. It has been hushed by the politicians and oddly enough many of the media, in noting that AIG was one of the 1st bailed out in the failing banking institutions, as they hold ALL the Federal Government Pension funds.

Why help citizens out when the pension of every politician is of the most importance.

Every politician regardless of party affiliation, is a crook.

We the people will always get fucked in the end...hmm...shouldn't have posted this in Obama thread since it was a last min. bailout by Bush for AIG. sorry But look on the bright side, AIG is going to use the funds given to them to give more bonus checks and pay raises to upper management.

CC companies are also moving to increase your minimum payments as well...should be double what you owe monthly in the next cycle if this goes through...oh and be late once on your next bill...maybe one day and you CC company is going to raise your interest rate to 23.9%

I was late on my payment this month. Was due on the 5th (Sunday) and a holiday weekend...banks had been closed on Fri. I didn't think that after being a CC holder w/ BOA for so many years and never being late once that they would have forgiven me and just dumped a late payment...nope...went from 9% to 23.9%. Am glad I only owed $200 and paid it off...needless to say, this card has been cancelled!

So F' the politicians regardless of party affiliation and F' the banks of which placed us in such an economic crap heap! My 401K is more or less wiped