I have a general sense that Theodore Roosevelt didn’t lie. Though I obviously didn’t live through his administration. But if he did, he was patently honest and direct enough that that is his legacy. The fact is that Obama will never have that legacy now. Neither will Clinton (for different and obvious reasons). The problem is, more than any candidate I’m aware of, Obama ran on: “I’m different”, “I’m not like those guys”, “I’m going to usher in a a heretofore unseen level of transparency, openness and honesty”.
I really don’t think so. At least not in my lifetime. Obama was truly hailed as a new kind of leader. Jon Stewart used to play angels singing before saying his name.
If you truly believe that so many candidates run as different from all those other lying bozos, then you should give Romney credit for at least not patronizing us. He’s pretty transparent with his pandering.
Yeah–and when he got elected, the Republicans made it their number one priority to prevent his second term, and who defined bipartisanship as Democrats voting for the Republican agenda. It takes two to tango, and the Republicans in congress decided to mosh.
So yeah, they ensured failure on that part of his platform, and as long as he clung to it, he failed in other regards as well. It was only when he took off the sparklepants and put on his own Doc Martins that he became effective.
Here is your quote that I think you’re referring to:
"The mandate was the sticking point. He swore up and down that it was NOT a tax. That no doubt made some percentage of the people more comfortable with it. And that encouraged more congressmen to vote for it, thinking that their constituents were supportive of it. But after assuring everyone in God knows how many interviews and speeches that the mandate was not a tax, he seeks to have it pass constitutionality on that basis. "
Did he seek to have it pass constitutionally on that basis? Did his administration argue before the courts that is was a tax?
Sigh. As far as the the unethical act in question, I’ve stated more than once, that it was not necessarily a lie. It is one explanation. The response of mine that you glommed on to had to do with politicians in general. Look to the specific post by AlienVessels it was in response to. He mentioned “politicians” generally. I responded with the generalities he put forth. He seemed to follow this. Funny you can’t. perhaps you need to reread. And then reread again.
So, you can’t even discern from the the thread which post my comment was in response to? Even though the posts and responses are nested together?!! Houston, we have a colossal fucking problem.
Bullshit. I challenge you to find one example of an Obama supporter referring to him as the messiah, ever. I doubt you’ll be able to because that was a republican invention to try to ridicule his supporters and minimize his popularity with the electorate. Only republicans ever called him messiah, and usually with a sneer.
And do you really think that was the point of Jon Stewarts joke on the daily show? Have you ever seen the show? He was satirizing the republicans insistence on the messiah meme. The audience for his show when that joke was being used was almost all Obama supporters. Do you really think Stewart was making fun of his audience?
Because generalities about groups of people who do X don’t interest me in the least.
No, I need an answer to my question, from whoever is claiming that there was a specific lie. That seems to be you. You claimed Obama said something. I simply would like you to back that up.
Tell you what. Rather than you conservatives trying to tell us progressives what excited us about Obama and why we should therefore be disappointed in him, how about you take us progressives at our word about what we think he’s done well and what we think he’s done poorly? You’re obviously not disappointed in him since you weren’t a fan of his in the first place, so telling how we ought to be disappointed is a bit rich.
If I had told people Obama was a typical Democratic politician and they’d said, “Yeah, we know, and that’s okay.” that would be one thing. Not one person I talked to who supported Obama, in person or on any discussion board, ever agreed with that statement. At the very least, they thought he was better than just a typical politician.
I’m not telling Democrats why they should be disappointed, I’m only offering a hypothesis as to why Romney is doing so well despite voters not blaming Obama for the economy. Other than Romney being awesome, that is.
Had the GOP not made getting rid of Obama their number one priority, impairing government process and the good of the country over the short term, presumably for the long term good (read GOP running things), I think Obama would have been able to fair better meeting his campaign promises.
The GOP moved so far right and so fast, that even when Obama moved right, it was never going to be enough.
Obama’s legacy hasn’t been written yet. I don’t think the GOP strategy of hugging the right wall and making sure nothing significant gets done is going to work for another 4 years.
The strategy was effective. They made sure Obama couldn’t possibly compromise to the right enough, but made him lunge so far that the Left would find it unacceptable and then took credit for the Left’s dissatisfaction while at the same time miss-attributing the reason.
That’s the problem, Obama has not moved right. He hasn’t changed course at all.
When criticizing Republican obstruction, it’s important to look at the historical context. Why are Republicans in a position to obstruct? Because they were elected as a reaction to Democratic policies. Since the Democrats haven’t changed their agenda in response to their loss, why should Republicans compromise? They were elected to stop those policies.
Now if Democrats want to pivot, like Clinton did, then you’ll see some results. Clinton’s agenda when he had a Democratic Congress was very different from the agenda he espoused when he had a Republican Congress. Which is why attempts at obstruction failed when tried, and why Republicans quickly realized the value of dealing with him. While trying to bring him down in other ways.
