Between expanding the war in Afghanistan, cowing to the hysterical demands of the Republicans in the Healthcare Debate, and
now this? are you really all going to tell me this is the "hope" and "change" that we signed up for?
I organized, I donated, and I sacrificed with the belief that Obama would carry, at the very least, maybe one or two of my ideals to the White House with him. Ever since then, I feel spurned, ignored, and disrespected by an administration that is more concerned with finding "consensus" between big money lobby groups and the Republicans who agree with them and the small-minded slice of the Base that will go along with Whatever our Sainted Leader tells us. Maybe I'm naive, but I really thought I was taking part in something that would enact some real change, but all I get is consensus, consensus, consensus, with a little big of big lobbyist money thrown in to steer the ship during the downtime.
I tried not to over-react to the 365 day tally, or the abysmal November Sessions where a clear Majority in the Senate dictated that the American public was interested in enacting real healthcare forums, but said Majority still failed to even bring the long overdue legislation to a vote, but now that he's going to just piss in the wind toward the Environment as well, I'm done.
I voted, I mobilized, I really wanted something new in DC. Guess my options are too earn enough money to be noticed, or elect someone else ... sighhhhh ...
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Second off, "enacting some real change", I know a 14 year old girl who may well not die of cancer because of his healthcare bill so
No it's not what we wanted, but fretting like this is a little over the top - we got more than we've gotten in what? Shit I don't even think there's been as much progress in my lifetime. I think we can all agree we're disappointed in how muted he sometimes is on important issues, but are you really going to lay the lack of a public option and other things on Obama? Really? Not the senate, no?
Okay just so we know where each other stands.
He... did? And they passed? And he signed two healthcare bills in about a week, and managed some student loan reform in the process?
Um, he cowed to the hysterical demands of the conservative Democrats in the healthcare debate...because without their votes he couldn't have passed any healthcare bill. He had the choice of a solid moderate victory or a giant liberal failure, and he chose the solid moderate victory. I'm not sure how that makes him a bad president.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Your critiques are... varied in their validity.
Let's address the accurate one first:
The drilling thing confuses the hell out of me. I have yet to figure out the purpose from a political standpoint and normally they're pretty savvy about such things. It's a bargaining chip that could have been used, in a theoretical universe where the Republicans might vote for a climate bill. I guess when gas prices go up as they do in the summer they can say they're doing something? But the media is actually interested in the fact that it won't do shit now that a Democrat is proposing it, so that won't work. That one baffles me, as it's obviously not good policy so it better be good politics, but it doesn't appear that's the case.
On health care I'm of two minds (clearly, if you've read my schizophrenic postings in the health care threads over the last year plus).
Mind the first: the White House could have been a hell of a lot more aggressive and not wasted time with Baucus' bullshit and then hopefully we get to a vote before Brown is elected and the bill is slightly better. I also think their messaging was shit. In short, I think they played the politics badly, probably because they believe their own Magical Unity Pony rhetoric.
Mind the second: this bill is a tremendous improvement to the status quo, and now that the heavy lifting of establishing the principle of guaranteed universal coverage is law, it will be easier to improve the bill in the future. In this sense, it's a tremendous policy accomplishment for the Democratic Party. As you know, people won't die because they're poor.
Complicating matters, if you've watched the Senate, you know how hard it is to wrangle that bunch of assholes, and the rules make it necessary to do so. It was a tremendously difficult thing and they (just barely) managed it. So good people can disagree, and I frequently had that argument with Qingu among others in the health care threads. I was for a very brief period enraged like you and wanted the thing killed, but realized that was dumb. Then I more expected the Democrats to blow it and was ecstatic to be wrong.
As for Afghanistan, this is a silly critique. He said he would do this. He said it for two years on the campaign trail. He said it in his book. He said it in speeches. He said it to the internets. He said it literally every time foreign policy was discussed from something like the fall of 2002 until he committed the troops to Afghanistan. This shouldn't be a surprise.
You know what a really good critique of this administration is though? The bullshit way they've handled the Bush abuses of power. Obviously defending them in Court with the same crap legal reasoning is awesome. Happily a federal judge ruled that argument was full of shit in the case of warrantless wiretapping. Which has been ruled a crime, and is punishable by 5 years in prison, but obviously none of the Washington elites who performed or authorized it will actually be punished. Same thing with torture, which is going to be re-instated as soon as a Republican is elected unless the fuckers who started it are actually punished and sent to jail.
It could have been a feint! A sop to Broder and friends! That he didn't really mean!
And even if he did (as is obvious), once it's abundantly clear you'll never get their votes you'd think we could abandon the strategy. That's my problem with it.
Also he's never going to be 100% what people want (no President has ever been), nor were Bush opponents also always against offshore drilling. We certainly don't do that because it's easy, because offshore drilling is dangerous as fuck and costs $TEXAS for exploration.
I can't seem to recall a better president out of the four I remember.
Personally, I wanted something besides a government mandated requirement to funnel money to private insurers, but I guess voting for the man just isn't enough to have my voice be heard.
I think he wants to maintain a rapport with independent voters.
That demystifies most of the things he does that seem to puzzle you.
And as soon as you vote in 60 liberal-to-moderate Democratic Senators at the same time as there's a Democratic president, you can have that. Get to it.
The problem here isn't Obama. The problem is your perception of what Obama would be able to do with the Congress.
A lot of conservative Democrats and independents voted for Obama, too. Should he not listen to them?
You're living in your own ego-centric fantasy world, man.
So basically you wanted him to stop the United States on a dime and change direction? You can't do that.
And I think independent voters are relatively rare (~10%), unlikely to vote anyway especially in a midterm, care mostly about someone who appears strong (Clinton's maxim*, which is brilliant) and if the economy is good and, they definitely don't give a shit about bipartisanship.
But we've argued about this before and didn't come to a satisfactory conclusion.
*Strong and wrong is better than weak and right. (Electorally, obviously)
His decision to give bribes to South Dakota?
That was something that came out of senate negotiations, and was subsequently removed by the patch bill that passed days after the original bill.
What are you, some Republican who thinks he's being really clever by whipping up liberal disatisfaction?
Because I can't help but notice that that is a Republican talking point, and that like most talking points it fails the logic test. If it was his choice to put South Dakota in (because he is the Lord of Senate Negotiations) then it was also his choice to take South Dakota out (because he is the Lord of Senate Negotiations).
What, the fuck exactly, do you think the President is empowered to do? I'm not talking about what Bush did, I'm talking about what he's actually legally allowed to do?
Well, between you and Barack one is a dude on an internet videogame forum and the other is the come from nowhere first Black president of the United States who just enacted universal healthcare.
I hate to make such a bald argument from authority, but . . .
Brilliant people are dumb all the time, especially in DC.
But I generally think political tactics don't matter much to voters. Useful for passing legislation though, so feel like they should have saved the drilling issue as a sop to Blue Dogs and if Lindsay Graham is being honest for the first time in his life.
He can't just be they guy who got progressives excited, he needs to be the guy that actually does something progressive ... still waiting ...
I'm just kind of tuning out the day to day for the most part. Unless there is some incredible realignment within the Republican Party I'm 99% sure how I'm voting in the next three national elections.
Quality is completely binary. You either do every single thing as well as possible or you are Hitler.
I understand that he talked a whole bipartisan blah blah blah leading up to the election, but I just assumed that because it was his progressivism that pushed him past Clinton II, he would see that as something he needed to continue in the office. Sadly, I didn't have enough money to bring this though to him...
Eh. I'm still not convinced about his legislative tactics. I mean, he got the thing passed eventually, but only after doing the thing every liberal on the planet said he needed to do to begin with. I'm conflicted.
And I'm incredibly pissed about the Bush-era abuses of executive power and the lack of accountability for same.
Why are you continuing to ignore the United States Congress? The legislative branch of our government does indeed have a pretty significant amount of say over legislation.
The main difference between them was really personality; Obama for example was known to be more conciliatory and often harped on bipartisanship. Ironically this seems to be what you are criticizing him for?
Oh, I understand now. You're mad at Obama because it turns out that he wasn't callously bullshitting about bipartisanship as you for no reason assumed he was. That's an entirely fair position.
Answer my question: What would you have had Obama do differently with
- Afghanistan (since you followed him before the campaign)
- Healthcare
- Jobs
- ???
- Profit
Not sure what this has to do with Obama, though.
Who cares?
The thing that didn't get done for a century got done.
What, you think that was an accident?
So, Obama has done nothing good?
All of those things could have been better if only Obama was a strong leader. Being a strong leader, by the way, means compromising less. And somehow still accomplishing things. I'm sure John McClane will supply more details about how this is done.