In the election, one theme we heard all the time was how inexperienced Obama was. Remember how Palin was supposedly better qualified?
So, if you felt that way, how is he doing experience-wise? Is he acting like someone who had experience after all, or just floundering? Let’s not discuss the things he is working on enacting, only how efficiently he is getting them through.
If you think his inexperience is showing, please give examples. If you admit you were wrong, that would be great. If you are willing to admit that the entire issue was junk, that would be fine too.
He’s gaining experience fast…but I think he’s still showing some holes, especially on the domestic front. There have been a number of what looks to be reversals of position. For example, since you asked, I think the situation AIG was a good example. Obama came out talking tough about how bad the evil executives were for getting raises…and then, later on, when the Congress got on board and, IMHO he saw what he had unleashed, he seemed to back pedal a bit to the voice of reason. There have been a few such incidents…again, purely IMHO.
FWIW, I voted for Obama, even though I knew he was inexperienced. Other aspects appealed to me at the time, and I’m not convinced (yet) that I made a mistake. But I have to say that one of the things that worries me most right now is his bail out proposal, and where he seems to be moving us economically. On the diplomatic front…well, jury is still out there too. I think he has the potential to be a great president…but, at this point, I think he also has the potential to be another Carter.
Slow to build a cabinet. Doesn’t do a good job vetting people. Rushed through a huge economic recovery bill that nobody read and doesn’t work. Wants to control executive salaries but can’t hire people who pay their taxes. wants to release GITMO prisoners into the US. Talks about a lack of government revenue and plans a national health care system as if they are not related.
IMO his apology tour of the Mid-East is going to be seen as a weakness by Islamic militants and thus cause a delay in troop withdrawals. This same attempt at placating the troublemakers of the world will be seen by North Korea as a green light to plow ahead. Meanwhile, China will continue to screw with our navy with more accidents or civilian interference with our warships.
It’s way too early to say with any certainty whether the stimulus has worked.
It’s way too early to say with any certainty whether the stimulus has worked.
Now, I know, technically that’s only one point. However, I thought it was such a big one that it was worth mentioning twice. For instance, you can point to Rohmer’s inaccurate unemployment predictions as evidence that the stimulus isn’t working while I can point to the fact that May had the lowest number of fresh layoffs since the recession began as evidence that it is working. In other words, the success of the stimulus is a conversation for next year, or maybe the year after. Right now, there’s nowhere near enough evidence for you to declare that it doesn’t work.
This is just silly. Out of the hundreds of people Obama has hired since January, how many had tax issues? Three? Four? And how many of these people still have these tax issues? None, as far as I can tell. In fact, as I recall everyone whose nomination was sullied by a tax scandal either (a) paid their debt before they started or (b) withdrew from the nomination. That talking point is very, very stale.
What’s wrong with that? These people aren’t ten foot tall, bullet-shitting desert warriors. They don’t need their own island to contain them. A federal Supermax in the U.S. will do just fine.
No he doesn’t.
Two points:
I thought you were against early troop withdrawals anyway.
Anything, short of snapping Bin Laden’s neck on live tv, would be spun as a sign of weakness by Islamic militants. Nobody gives a fuck what they think outside of how we can use it to more easily marginalise/kill them.
And how do you think Bush’s ‘hands-off’ approach was seen by North Korea?
In contrast, how do you think they’ll view the tough new economic sanctions championed by Obama and levied against them by the UN?
As far as I remember, there has been precisely one incident where the Chinese clashed with the U.S. Navy. Is there any more to it than that?
Weston, your crticism of ctriticism is grossly partisan, in a way the original criticism was not, often factually incorrect, and usually quite imperceptive. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. In particular, while you were correct was not tardy in forming the Cabinet, he had and has difficulties in filling other important government positions. Likewise, we thus far have six top Democrats tapped for the Cabinet alone who’ve had tax fraud going on.
Anyway, I have two different criticisms of Obama. The first is that his policies are objectively wrong, in that they will not bring what either America needs or even what he claims they will bring. But that’s not the point of the thread.
His foreign policy is unlikely to work. The plain fact is that his popularity is widespread but thin, except among certain swooning idiots in the journalism. He doesn’t seem to understand this. His emphasis upon “I won’t do anything to you, can’t we all be friends?” will not earn him any respect from foreign governments, and it is already leading to major foreign policy reversals.
Weston forgot it, but under Bush, we stopped North Korea’s nuclear plans for several years, and could have kept that up. They would have tested a new President regardless, for which I don’t specifically blame Obama. This situation can still be salvaged, however, so three is some hope. The “ignore them” strategy has worked before.
His handling of Iran is ridiculous. I agree (with Bush and Obama) attacking Iran with military force won’t work. However, it’s important to keep pressure on them in other ways, and Obama is not doing this. This is strengthening the hardliner position there, leading to among other things their stupid but apparently effective naked stealing of the election. Obama should have denounced this as a gross insult to the Iranian people, but instead rolled over and begged for more.
There are a lot of other things I could probably post, but most of it simply that he’s fundamentally a soft Fascist with a pretty face, and corrupt and power-hungry. Suffice it to say I don’t think he actually understands how most of the world, or for that matter America, actually works. Gievn that he has no understanding of economics or international politics, I’m not surprised.
The stimulus money is just beginning to flow, but the market is up, unemployment is getting worse at a slower pace, retail sales are even up, and consumer confidence is up. Saying the stimulus package didn’t work is just a bit premature. Plus, more in line with the point of the thread, you have to be a pretty effective guy to get Congress to pass such a big package without reading it.
Our side won the election in Lebanon. There are riots in the streets of Tehran. al-Qaida fighters are running away from Pakistan, and the Pakistani army has shown some backbone finally. I can’t say Obama is responsible, but whatever yelling at Pakistan he is doing seems to be working. The Taliban suddenly getting unpopular helps also. North Korea he inherited from your hero, but there was a unanimous Security Council vote to strengthen sanctions.
But I’m sure your policy, which sounds to me like telling the Moslem world that they are all heathen terrorists (like that general who did it without being punished) would work a lot better.
In any case, he pulled off the speech perfectly. I don’t care that you don’t like the content. Calling our effort there a crusade, now that would be a sign of inexperience.
I’d say too early to tell. At least he hasn’t started any unnecessary wars yet. The economic mess he’s dealing with is something almost no one would have experience dealing with. This would be a good topic to review in about 6 months when we can start evaluating the effectiveness of his policies.
I think the question of whether his policies are correct is different from that of how well he is executing on those policies. The Times magazine last week had an article supposedly about health care but really mostly about his relationships with Congress. They have hired top aides of many of the senior Democratic congressmen for the White House staff. 80 senators and 330 Congressmen have been to the White House. Rahm works out at the House gym to pick up gossip. They even track who gets invited to White House movie night. Whatever you feel about the package, it is certainly being done more competently than the supposedly experienced Clinton, who just dumped a massive book on Congress.
I’m sorry, but this is absurd. I’m perfectly prepared to admit I’m wrong on pretty much any topic you’d care to mention, but to say Magiver’s criticism wasn’t partisan is laughable, especially considering his posting history.
Well, that wasn’t what Magiver said. He referred to the Cabinet. On that point, he is wrong. End of.
In terms of mistakes due to inexperience, I can think of a few:
He’s had to backpedal a couple of times because he made statements he couldn’t back up. For example, he announced the closure of Gitmo before he knew how to do it. Now they’re having trouble sorting that out.
He went too far in demonizing various executives, and had to backpedal from that. Experience would have taught him that there are things you can say as a Senator or on the campaign trail that you shouldn’t say as President.
His vetting process has been clumsy at best.
He’s stayed in ‘campaign mode’ too long. He talks about himself too much, and he does too much blaming of the previous administration. Even if his blame has merit, Presidents need to be careful about such things.
He gave Congress way too much power in drafting the stimulus and the budget. He basically got rolled by Pelosi and Reid, and signed off on a laundry list of things they wanted. Experience would have taught him that with his own party controlling both the House and Senate, he needed to act fast to assert some form of discipline on them, lest they derail his agenda with their own political foibles.
There have been a few other things he’s done that showed inexperience, but on the other hand there’s an awful lot that he’s done very well - even if I don’t agree with his policies, I have to admire the political skills. So at worst I think it’s a wash, and at best I’d say that on balance he’s done better politically than McCain would have done, and much better than Bush, who was a disaster when it came to communicating.
How is that a backpedal? Isn’t he still going to do it, they’re just not sure how? Granted, the details are far from trivial, but the overarching message is important.
We don’t have a parliamentary system, and having your party in control is no guarantee at all of getting your stuff passed. JFK had lots of problems, LBJ did much better, but he was a master from being Senate Majority Leader for so long.
The Times article talks about this quite a lot. The House is more activist than the Senate - and more than Obama himself. By getting slightly different bills passed in both chambers, he can get more or less what he wants and be hailed as a good mediator also. Pelosi has pulled some fast ones, but I don’t see how experience would have prevented that. If she does it twice it’s a different story. And I don’t think we know how close the final bill came to what he really wanted. Like I said, cramming a bill down the throat of Congress doesn’t work at all well.
As for the me, me, me part, he actually had backed off too far in the stimulus bill, and had to go on the road to sell it. He’s a lot more popular than congress at the moment, so this is a good idea.
The real source of experience here is Rahm, who made and saw lots of mistakes when he was in the Clinton White House. But I think that counts.
Last I heard, Islamic militants were recruiting based on the idea that America’s hegemonic evil was oppressing the whole world, not that we are a bunch of pussies that can take down easy.