I suspect Obama might have some difficulty implementing a public health option via executive order- and you need more than 51% to pass a law given the byzantine Congressional committee system and the retarded Senate filibuster phenomenon.
What about DADT?
It’s not clear whether Obama can lift DADT via executive order or not; the White House has taken the (not unreasonable) position that only Congress has the authority to do so.
If he did do it via executive order he’d be spending an awful lot of political capital needlessly.
I have also been disappointed by Obama, but I knew he’s a politician, so I’m not all that surprised. Really people, we need to stop all this touchy-feely crap about these people. The best we can hope for is someone who’s a lying dirtbag for more of the causes you support, and less for the causes you don’t. I still feel better about voting for the Democrat liar than the Republican liar.
I sometimes wonder who people thought they were electing last year. (I also wonder how the OP managed to type in crayon.) Obama is not a radical: he has over and over again made it clear that he would rather compromise and get something done than get nothing done at all. That’s reflected in the public option part of the health care debate: he supports it but he’s willing to give it up to get other reforms enacted. He’s made strategic mistakes along the way but I am not sure how people can still be surprised about how he does business. He’s been in office for nine months and he campaigned for two years before that.
So basically, it’s “the buck stops somewhere else.”
Look, I like the guy. But that seems to be his primary trait: likeability, and the need to be liked. I just think the U.S. elected a Carrot, when what it needs is a Vetinari.
It’s more a case of there being things he needs to do because only he can do them, and things he should do but will be done by other people if he doesn’t. DADT is almost certain to be repealed shortly; even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has publicly come out against it.
Universal health coverage* is not certain to be passed, and probably never will if not now. Moreover, it affects all Americans, while DADT affects a relatively tiny number of people.
*that being the issue that’s currently occupying most of his time and political capital.
Actually, it sounds more like what you want is a Snapcase or Winder. Vetinari’s smart enough to use the system to achieve long-term goals, and not squander political capital trying to force an agenda into existence over the heads of the various power brokers and stakeholders in the city.
Obama is far more of a Vetinari than you think. Of course, given that Vetinari is essentially the ultimate politician, that may or may not be a good thing. Personally, I’ll take the “pragmatic, long-term approach” over the “executive order my will into existence, only to have the resultant backlash drive me and my entire party out of power for years to come.” Remember the last president that took the latter course? He just left office a few months ago.
While I don’t necessarily disagree, Americans smart and devious enough to be considered Vetinaris usually avoid politics entirely and instead focus on making an utterly disgusting amount of money in the private sector. Politics is dominated by people who either think they’re Vetinari but aren’t smart enough or by people who have Ideals, which usually get in the way of intelligence if it exists.
Congress passed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Like Really Not All That Bright said, it’s not unreasonable to believe Congress needs to get rid of it. It’s going soon, one way or another.
It’s been very disappointing to see Obama move so slowly on that issue (and to over compromise on health care reform), but then again, he’s got a slew of problems to deal with and a couple of months ago people were starting to criticize him for taking on too many different issues. He can’t be expected to do with everything at once.
That pesky Constitution! What a convenient dodge: just because Congress passed a law back in 1993 or thereabouts, Obama can’t just wipe it off the books with a stroke of a pen? What did America vote for, if Obama can’t act like an autocrat and rewrite the US Code at his whim?!
No, obeying the Constitution is clearly the whimpy tactic of an inexperienced politician. Your points are right on the mark.
Note that it is within his power to suspend DADT as long as reserve troops are deployed. It’s just not in his power to repeal it. See here.
A good part of the vote for Obama was that he was not Bush. McCain had clearly indicated he would continue Bush era policies and McCain had rolled over (shockingly after the 2000 election) to kiss Bush’s ass during Bush’s presidency there was every reason to suspect McCain would be more of the same. Considering the “same” was arguably the worst president ever that was not a ringing endorsement to many. Add the truly (I really mean that) frightening prospect of Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency and the choice was a no-brainer.
FTR I was an Obama supporter. I also am a realist and understand that no one will get everything they want. The reality in Washington is one of compromise. Nevertheless I expected Obama to actually try to do the things he promised during his campaign. I believed he would try. If the result came up short that is only to be expected.
Unfortunately Obama has been more Bush than I ever would have expected. Read the New York Times editorial The Coverup Continues for a scathing look at this. And that from the NYT which is an Obama supporter!
Obama should have prosecuted Bush era people who so egregiously trampled on the Constitution and our laws. Has he done that? Nope. What is worse though is Obama is continuing those policies. Undoing what Bush has done? Ha! He is Bush redux.
Wall Street? Has anyone gotten busted for the colossal meltdown? Nope. Has there been any serious drive to real reform? Nope. Have they stopped the bilking of the American populace? Nope. Stopped the egregious bonus crap? Not really (a little bit). Weakened Wall Street’s control of policy? Nope, far from it (see: Goldman exec named first COO of SEC enforcement - fox meet hen house).
Health care reform? Well, he has gotten further than anyone else but he is wishy-washy at best on a public option and indeed favors the trigger option of all things. I have not read anywhere, from anyone, that thinks triggers are good in any way shape or form. Indeed we are better off with nothing than a trigger option as it only really helps the very insurance industry we are trying to fix. Yet he pushes it for some reason and I cannot believe he is stupid enough to not see its flaws. I can only guess he pushes it because he wants “reform” to pass at any cost to claim a “victory” regardless if it is actual reform or not.
Add in Obama’s handouts to Big Pharma in a secret deal. So much for transparency he promised.
Obama’s only brilliance so far is doing what Bush did without making progressives/liberals howl. I am appalled at the likes of MoveOn.Org. My sense of them used to be they were an organization dedicated to pushing a progressive agenda. Considering the e-mail they send me almost daily I can only think they are shilling for Obama rather than trying to hold Obama accountable to his promises.
Add in fun like DADT, Gitmo, continued support for warrantless wiretapping…
Frankly I am seeing a LOT of Bush in Obama and litle Obama in Obama (at least the guy I saw campaign). This is not, “he’s got a lot on his plate, give the guy some time.” This is emphatic embracing of the policies so many of us have railed against. I was content to wait awhile and see. Give him a chance to get up to speed. Hope he was engaged in some sort of brilliant political jujitsu. I’m done…I should be seeing at least his willingness to fight and use his bully pulpit to get meaningful change made. I am seeing zero of that. ZERO!
If the Dems and Obama keep this up they will take a bath at the polls in 2010/2012. So thoroughly thumbing your nose at the base that got you in power is not a good move.
Yes, exactly how Bush bent the democratic congress. And his successor president. Some people are just good.
You could’ve picked Hillary. Duh.
And if you weren’t lemmings from the start, you’d have better, more courageous candidates from the start.
Bush was able to bend Congress to his will early thanks to a spirit of cooperation and probably more thanks to a spirit of terror after 9/11. He was much less successful later on and in non-military/security matters; see his failure to privatize Social Security later on, or his failure to appoint anti-Roe Supreme Court justices.
Indeed, it’s incredible.
If I was more of a conspiracy theorist, I’d posit that Obama was some sort of neo-con puppet. But I know better. He’s just a brainwashed pussy. It is unbelievable how the Democrats have been brainwashed by Bush to accept his policies and arguments. Truly incredible. You could see it starting in 2006 with Pelosi and the Democratic congress. Wow. They are so spineless and without the ability for independent thought. And they ignore all the anti-Bushies as extremists.
Obama doesn’t have the power to prosecute anyone. His attorney general may do this, but we’ll see. I’d like to see it happen.
Again, why did you think there would be? Did Obama say people would be thrown in jail? I don’t remember him every saying anything like that.
Not to this point. I don’t think he’s going to shake any system to its foundations.
That depends. Are you in favor of health care reform because you hate the insurance industry, or because you want more people to have health insurance? 
The proposals right now are very watered down and I’m not sure how many people are really going to get help. But it’s not worse than nothing.
I think he sees it’s the best he’s going to get.
Obama has not fulfilled several of his promises, but he also never campaigned as a revolutionary. People who expected one have themselves to blame.
I hate to single you out, because you’re not the only one doing this, but…
Can we get past this shit about the mean old right wing commentators? Grow a pair, Dems. And the idea that smear politics is something new is pretty damn naive. Newspapers were blatantly partisan in the past, and politics was extremely dirty and personal. If I had to guess, I’d say things were worse, back in the day.
Nobody’s accused anybody of having bastard children or sex with slaves, that’s for sure. There’s some crazy shit out there and it’s also true that political opposition gets unified on a national level on a way it didn’t used to. But most of Obama’s shifts and other disappointments have not been caused by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the teabagging crew. On health care, that probably had an impact. On Guantanamo or wiretapping or DADT, they’re a non-issue.
That’s okay, man. You know what they say about publicity…
I think you’re wrong, though. Fox News has totally changed the impact of the media on public opinion. Regardless of whether you believe the media-liberal-bias nonsense, prior to Fox News, everyone watched the “mainstream media”, regardless of what they thought of it.
Now the right wing watches only Fox, which means things they’d normally see reported on objectively (or with a leftist slant) are now being reported on with a right-wing slant. It’s increasing the polarization of the country. That’s why you’re seeing all these teabag protests- people are pissed off about things that ordinarily wouldn’t concern them. Fox took a step beyond the previous role of the media and actually promoted the tea parties, and continues to do so via Beck’s 9/12 Project or whatever it’s called. Not even the muckracker newspapers did that.