It’s 3/25. At this point in Obama’s Presidency, that’s an irrelevant comparison.
You were also being wrong.
Not really - Obama has managed to increase the deficit as much in his first seven weeks as Bush did in his first year.
The point being that Bush inherited the mess of Islamic terrorism from his predecessor. So the statement that Bush didn’t inherit an unholy mess is incorrect.
THe dot-com crash plus 9/11 did cause a recession, so saying it didn’t is also ridiculous.
I know, I know - that’s different.
Regards,
Shodan
Pretend all you want, Diogenes.
If Dubya had given Gordon Brown a bunch of unuseable DVDs as a “gift” to the leader of our most important ally, he’d have been made to look like a pinhead on late night TV.
If Dubya had screwed up using a teleprompter in front of the president of Ireland, he’d have been made to look like an inept idiot.
Am I saying Obama is stupid? Not at all (I was in his graduating class at Columbia- I can’t very well make my classmates out to be dumb!). But, like any President (like any human being), he says and does dumb things on a regular basis.
You like him, so you shrug off such things. That’s your privilege.
But a comedian is SUPPOSED to mock celebrities who foul up publicly. As a rule, comedians are giving Obama a pass.
Good thing that opinion is irrelevant then isn’t it?
We’ll see if he’s made it worse or better. He’s thinking long-term, which generally sends fiscal conservatives into apoplexy.
Bush
Inauguration 1.20.00
Terrorist attack 9.11.01
So a year and 8 months after he was inaugurated is ‘inherting’?
This is beyond silly. Obama increased the deficit in 7 weeks because they are building the budget, after the budget is in place he won’t really increase it much more at all for the rest of the year, so for the first year the numbers will be comparable.
astorian Yeah Bush had the good sense to give Gordon Brown a Presidential bomber jacket.
Wrong about what? I said the market was surging. It is. I sarcastically said it must have been because of Obama’s speech because he always gets the blame when it goes down.
Clinton caused Islamic terrorism? That’s a new one.
Something Bush did inherit directly from Clinton wasa warning that Osama bin Laden was going to attack the US and that he needed to make that his number one priority. Bush chose to ignore that warning and prioritize golf and tax giveaways for his rich friends instead.
Erm…Inauguration 1.20.01. Only eight months.
I live in the UK and my DVD player works on all regions. I’m guessing the PM’s does too. And DVDs are probably on par with the Topshop clothing (which is pretty mundane stuff), although the pen thing was a nice gesture.
Brian Cowen (who is the Taoiseach, not the President, of Ireland - Mary McAleese is President of Ireland) read the wrong speech first due to the teleprompter being wrong. Obama subsequently read part of Cowen’s speech, although whether this was because he was just reading the prompter (which had switched over) or whether this was a deliberate joke to cover up the gaffe depends on which news source you read - I haven’t found a definitive source on the matter.
Uh-huh.
Obama has had considerably fewer slapstick moments than Bush (the pretzel incident, trying to leave by a locked door in China) and fewer verbal manglings (do I need an example here?). These are easy fodder for lazy comedians.
Furthermore, Obama (or his team) are better at defusing a lot of the criticism. He includes a lot of self-deprecatory remarks when talking about himself (see the “I inhaled frequently” thing for an example). Also, it’s more difficult to get any comedy mileage out of his “Special Olympics” comment when you learn that he promptly rang the head of the SO to apologize.
When he falls down a flight of stairs or gives Gordon Brown an impromptu backrub and the comedians stay silent, I will happily concede the point.
The swoon after 9/11 was a mere blip compared to the huge mess Bush passed on to Obama. The Dow recovered to pre 9/11 levels in just two months. The recession in the early 2000’s was one of the mildest ever, and lasted exactly two quarters, the minimum to be considered a recession. Trying to equate the two in any way is just whitewashing.
Have you even been watching the Daily Show? I realize Jon Stewart is only one comedian, but he’s been getting the most publicity lately and he’s being singled out as a lefty partisan…yet he mocked the hell out of Obama for the DVDs and the “reset button” for Russia, and he’s been slapping his forehead at a few other things Obama’s done. Obama hasn’t been getting a pass on his blunders at all, and I suspect that once the new president smell really does wear off, the DVDs (just as one example) are going to stay with him for a while.
That’s because you made it up.
You mean “the huge mess Bush and the Democratically controlled Congress passed on to Obama, and to which Obama has responded by doing twice as much of what you believe caused the recession in the first place”.
It is rather like reacting to a massive weight gain by doubling your food intake.
But of course, this time, it will work.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes. That’s why they take every opportunity to point out anything that could be perceived to make Obama look stupid, and then pointedly remind you that is exactly what would have been done to Bush. They cast everything in the strongest terms of Obama being stupid.
http://theanchoressonline.com/2009/03/19/obama-sans-teleprompter-not-pretty/
Talk about projection.
Title says it all.
http://www.coalitionoftheswilling.net/archives/2009/03/most_gifted_ora.html
Suddenly the memespace is abuzz with the premise that Obama is helpless without a teleprompter. Nevermind that he has held now two hour long press conferences (well, okay he had a prepared speech, then 45 mins of questions) to the American people answering direct questions from reporters and managed to be clear and articulate.
I don’t think it’s a fair comparison to equate the remarks about Democrats as treasonous with the remarks about Republicans as criminals.
I mean, Nixon has Watergate, and Reagan wasn’t called a criminal until after Iran-Contra (and nobody is sure if Reagan did or didn’t know, if people were covering for him, or if his alzheimer’s had already kicked in).
Bush II definitely invites that same comparison with efforts to circumvent the Geneva Conventions and define some things as “not torture” so he can use them legally. And wire tapping US citizens. Not to mention that Bush II’s justifications seem too eerily similar to Nixon’s, “When the President does it, it’s not a crime.” So the characterization of Republicans as criminals is a lot more solidly founded on fact that the hyperbolic assertion of “treason” thrown at liberals.
Obama’s actions are seen as harmful to interests of the wealthy and powerful, which trumps the fact that he may be one of them.
How, by taking into account the costs of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I haven’t seen it either, but that would definitely be in character for Obama, to read part of Brian Cowen’s speech as a joking way to make light of the teleprompter error.
I am not sure I understand what you are asking. Bush did not invade Iraq in his first year in office.
During Bush’s first year in office, the national debt increased by about $144.5B. The Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. By 2008, the debt was increasing by about $1.2T per year(cite, if you really need it).
Obama’s increase in the deficit is at least $1.845T (cite). This does not include the additional spending he has also called for.
So actually, stating that Obama increased the deficit more in his first seven weeks than Bush did in his first year considerably understates the amount - Obama increased the deficit by something like five or six times more than Bush did - 144.5 vs. 743.
Regards,
Shodan
So many to choose from! And if you’ve managed to not see one I have to think that it takes some effort to not see what’s right in front of you. But since you ask for one:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/19/obama-insults-special-olympics/
The Special Olympics joke is the best you can do?
No, no, no! There are a plethora of them, they abound, one could be simply overwhelmed trying to choose! He simply chose the lamest of the lame, out of consideration for your feelings. Really, you should be grateful! He could have brought up that brutally insensitive “57 state” thingy, for instance, or all the stuff Rev Wright said which he so fully endorsed. And God alone knows what he said while smoking crack with the Weather Underground!
How about pissing off the French government by sending a letter to Jaques Chirac offering to work with him before meeting with Sarkozy?
This is one of many unforced errors Obama has made in foreign policy so far. Another would be deciding to unilaterally offer the Russians a deal - eliminating missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for Russian help dismantling Iran’s nuclear program. The Russians laughed in his face, the Iranians sneered, and Poland and the Czechs felt they’d been sold down the river despite sticking their necks out a mile to agree to the missile prgram in the first place. It also signalled to the Russians that Obama was willing to give up the system, and Obama gave up that knowledge for nothing.
Then there was his video to the Iranians, which had the wonderful effect of taking the U.S. off the offensive and putting it on the defensive while simultaneously giving the Iranians a propaganda tool.
And should we talk about giving the British Prime Minister a DVD box set as an exchange gift? And that the box set was region 1 NTSC, not even playable in Britain?
How about Obama’s representative snubbing the British by claiming they are only one of 190 countries, and really nothing special?
Then there’s the complete incompetence on display in choosing and vetting his cabinet. The Treasury, probably the most important branch in the government at this minute, has something like 13 out of 15 senior positions still vacant.
Then there was Obama coming up with his own idea to make disabled vets pay for their health care through their own insurance. Boy, that was the move of a political genius.
And do we need to go over the AIG fiasco again? Obama claimed he didn’t know about the bonuses, then it was pointed out tha they were explicitly allowed in the bill he had signed - and that his administration was the party responsible for pushing to get that clause added. Then he came out and inflamed the mob with a bunch of populist angry rhetoric, undercutting his own program. Then, after realizing that, he tried to tamp it down - while his own treasury guy was telling the new CEO to get the money back. Then a couple of days later Obama claimed to be speechless with rage over them. Then in his next speech, he tried to calm everyone down again. That’s the kind of leadership you can trust.
Then there was the administration deciding to give a gift to the Russians - a big ‘Reset’ button. Which was a stupid idea in the first place, but made worse by the fact that they translated the Russian wrong, so the Russians got a gift from the Obama administration consisting of a big button with ‘Overcharge’ written on it in Russian. Good work, gang.
Then there were the issues he failed to take the lead on - such as Congress prohibiting Mexican trucking allowed under NAFTA as a gift to the Teamsters - resulting in Mexico slapping tariffs on a bunch of American goods. Just what you want in a recession.
So let’s see… He’s managed to piss off the British and French, look weak to the Russians and Iranians, make the Chinese worry about the safety of their investments, and he tried to nominate an enemy of Israel to head the National Intelligence Council. Piss off your allies, weaken your hand with your rivals, look weak in front of your enemies. Yeah, this Obama administration is the height of competence.
In addition, Obama is protecting himself in ways Bush didn’t. He’s being even more closed with the press - screening questions, bringing teleprompters to press conferences, announcing beforehand which press people would be picked and which wouldn’t… Stuff that would never have been tolerated from Bush.
This ones’s actually pretty funny: Obama Bars Press from Press Award Ceremony
Ah, it’s a golden era of transparency, isn’t it? You’d think a brilliant guy like Obama would understand how bad this looks. I guess someone decided that they didn’t want Obama to look quite that black or something, and it wouldn’t be good ‘optics’ to see him getting an award from a black press association. Or something. That’s the only reason I can possibly come up with.