I’m not American so this doesn’t impact me directly, well the enviromental part may, but I’ve a big interest in US polictics and follow the stuff here and elsewhere closely.
I was watching RealTime with Bill Maher yesterday and his final segment he threw digs at Obama. I have to say I agree with him. While I’d be delighted Obama won and want him to remain as long as possible I would be starting to get frustrated with his style.
Does Maher have a valid point or do you think that Obama is just playing the long game. If things don’t change for the GOP then I can see Obama get in for a 2nd term pretty easily but now with a large section of the public behind him and the votes in the Senate and Congress should he be really pushing this shit through.
Agreed. Obama really isn’t using the certificates of legitimacy (eg, popularity within his own party and the country as a whole) he has to the fullest. He’s had some bold moves (like appearing on Al Jazeera for his first interview), but most of them having been PR-related–not really *doing *anything. Of course, I didn’t expect him to get tough on the banks (even during the election, no major candidate dared to suggest that they might be culpable), but I did expect the moderate changes he promised, like a compromise on healthcare reform (with a public option) and returning to due process w/r/t prosecution of terrorism suspects.
I think that his popularity may prove to be a double-edged sword. Left-wingers may be unwilling to criticize him lest they give the right amunition, but in the meantime real crises are not being dealt with adequately.
But I’m not sure it’s entirely Obama’s fault. By appealing to both the liberals and conservatives in trying to build a consensus, Obama has positioned himself as the center. It’s up to the vocal liberals to push the center to where it needs to be; otherwise, the right will succeed in maintaining the status quo.
Maher is just another smarmy little weasel on television, a talking head, one of those nonentities like David Letterman or Paris Hilton who are famous despite their utter mediocrity. There’s little point in taking him seriously at all. Like a lot of lefties, he’s finally waking up to the fact that Obama is an empty suit, and he’s feeling some buyer’s remorse.
Maher just wants him to do more and is saying so. Maher is a big supporter of Obama. There is nothing wrong in criticising someone you support. It by no means means you don’t want them as Pres. just that you want your man to do something different.
Appearing on Al-Jazeera and re-establishing America’s world moral leadership are not done just for PR. They are practical ways of fighting extremism and terrorism, and particularly recruiting of young people into armed groups who hate the United States. Also, compromises are part and parcel of his opearting style. He is neither a liberal nor a conservative. He is a pragmatist. Read his books.
Sam Nunn is a good example of what congress critters should aspire to be. Compare Obama to Nunn, and you begin to understand that he’s all hat and no cattle.
Obama’s four big domestic policy goals were the stimulus, bank reform, health care and Carbon reduction legislation. He’s passed the one where time mattered, getting the stimulus through two years from now would be fairly pointless. There seems to have been a conscious decision to wait on banking reform until the banks were in better shape, which seems wise. Health care legislation seems to be pretty imminent, and given the scale of any meaningful reform, the fact that he didn’t try and cram it through the first week is probably a good thing.
On carbon reduction he has moved slowly, I suspect he either thinks he’ll need to wait to see if the Dems get another seat or two in the Senate, or he wants to make sure health reform passes before burning political capital on a second major project. Time will tell if that’s the correct course, but I think it makes sense anyways.
People in a lot of political discussions also seem to forget that Obama has only been President for a few months. I guess the long campaign and the fact that Bush was sort of a non-entity for the last year of his Presidency make it seem like Obama has been in charge for a lot longer.
I do so love politics by slogans and catch-phrases people have picked up along the way. This is one of the more literate catch-phrases the right picked up during the election, but it’s still a catch-phrase.
And yet he ran what was arguably the most successful Presidential campaign we’ve ever seen. And even though he inherited a financial meltdown, he’s still enjoying high approval ratings.
That’s not to say that the Presidential office should be a popularity contest- but high popularity is certainly a good indicator that a lot of people *still *think he’s doing a good job. Maybe the “experience” that you’re looking for in a POTUS is exactly what got us into this mess.
If Obama is an empty suit, Bush was an empty office. Who did you vote for in the previous two elections, anyway?
There is also the idea that Obama’s strategy was to funnel some of the bailout money toward green projects. There should be grants coming out for that. I really hope he isn’t thinking in terms of carbon offsets, that was an idea formed in Hell. Didn’t the emissions standards for all new vehicles get raised recently? Is that not significant to reducing carbon emissions?
As for healthcare, that’s a long road. Bill Maher is just a whiny crybaby who wants everything, NOW NOW NOW. Of course Obama was not lefty enough for the left, I think pretty much everyone but the right understood that when they voted for him.
I worked for the Obama campaign . I agree with Maher and have been saying the same thing to my son for a while. My son was an organizer for the campaign.
I understand that sometimes political reality requires a pull back to actually get things on the proper road. But i feel he is caving a bit on issues that were important in the campaign. I want out of Iraq and Gitmo. They shame us. Going slowly is a refutation of principal. if it is wrong ,stop it. Don’t say it is wrong, I will stop it sometime in the future. I think the financial thieves that were involved in the destruction of the economy should be as far from the sector as possible. They should spend their time facing house committees and trials.
He may actually be trying to get to the promises land. But i am not happy with the route he is taking.
If someone wants to call Obama an “empty suit” it seems incumbent upon them to describe what a non-empty suit would look like. Note this does not mean pushing policies you agree with. It is possible for him to not be an empty suit and yet not do a single thing you like. Just that he is clearly busy and getting things done.
Obama is President…not a dictator. If you think he can only have been considered effective if he had achieved health care reform, fixed the economy and brought peace to the Middle East methinks your standards are unreasonable.
Agreed on Gitmo, emphatically disagree on Iraq. I am reassured by how he is acting in Iraq. It’s a campaign promise I am glad he is not irresponsibly trying to force a delivery on.
Maher is a whiner. Obama is playing a long game, and we want everything yesterday. Chill, and let the man do the job we elected him to do, without leaning over his shoulder and trying to micromanage him. Dude be smarter than us, remember? You can’t undo 8 years of Evil overnight.