Still a step up from Bush, though, who never listened to anyone and never changed his mind, no matter how transparently stupid his ideas were.
It makes him someone who can learn, which is frankly invaluable these days. If you’re looking for someone who gets it all right on the first try, you’re going to be looking for a very long time.
It wasn’t a good idea. Nobody is disputing that.
But what is equally clear is that you will never give credit to anything Obama does right. I don’t see you going out there and starting threads giving props to him for proposing the largest budget increase in VA history. Nor do you give him credit for restoring VA health coverage to half a million veterans who since 2003 were stopped from visiting VA hospitals, reversing a bad idea from the Bush Administration.
But nobody expects that you will call George Bush immoral for preventing hundreds of thousands of veterans from even enrolling in the VA health care system.
That’s why nobody cares about whether anything you say has any truth to it. You’re not credible on any political issue.
Only because it’s expected of anyone with half a brain. Any stupid misstep is just that…stupid. And if your standard is that Obama is marginally better than Bush, we have a big problem.
You’re looking for someone who doesn’t have to learn on the job. You’re looking for someone who doesn’t make stupid mistakes. Anyone can learn. It’s not especially admirable except when it’s about Obama and it’s Obama fans that are speaking.
It was a stupid idea, and when someone told him, he actually listened and changed his mind. Holy shit.
The Decider would have either gotten no such input from his echo chamber full of Yes Men, or would have ignored it and gone ahead.
Which is more stupid? To have a bad idea and abandon it, or to charge full steam ahead with it?
Yes, I know it’s “equivalency”, but I don’t care.
Everyone makes stupid mistakes. A good person will admit it and correct their mistakes, given the opportunity.
“Anyone who makes mistakes is unfit for office.”
Anduril, do you agree with this statement?
Obama makes mistakes and owns up to them. Some of his politics I do not agree with at all, but I respect him much more than any President in a very long time. I honestly hope he remains fallible and continues making mistakes, instead of being “always right, my way or highway” and having a spin machine of enormous proportions to hide behind.
I agree that reversing course when corrected is the right thing to do. I don’t agree that it is especially admirable. And I don’t agree with people not criticizing the President for the stupid mistake and applauding instead that he reversed course when he was corrected.
If the President says “1+1=3” but corrected that when he was told that was wrong, will the natural reaction be “at least he corrected himself” or “what an idiot”. Everyone who is NOT an Obama fan will choose the latter. All of you here are choosing the former. That’s pathetic.
The last president I can remember actually changing course and admitting he was wrong, was John F. Kenney after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Most people thought better of him for it.
I’d much rather hear “I’m an idiot, I fucked up, it’s all my fault” rather than the past 8 years of “stay the course”.
Anduril, if you don’t see the difference between “accidental” stupidity and deliberate willful stupidity, then I won’t waste my time trying to explain it.
Anduril, you’re a retard.
Or maybe you’re just looking for reasons to hate him, and the other people are trying to be optimistic and forgiving.
Oh, I see. You’re just an asshole.
Matters of policy are a little more complex than arithmetic. Just a tad.
And you’re very, very wrong on nobody criticizing the original decision. It took until post 8 in that thread for someone to offer a defense of Obama’s action, and that was hardly a resounding round of applause.
Nobody criticized the decision in this thread because by the time it was posted, he’d already changed his mind. As for any “applause,” the wrong decision had already been made, and any positive reactions toward Obama are because he had two choices from there: either ignore advice and press on, or listen to the advice and change his mind. When the former President would have done the first, the current President did the second, and that’s something to be happy about.
You’ve made a rather stupid mistake, in that my point of bringing up Bush was NOT to compare him with Obama.
My point of bringing up some of Bush’s lamentable record on veterans was to show that the OP’s outrage doesn’t appear to extend to political allies.
Apparently, you were unable to accurately read what I posted. Will you admit your mistake? Or shall we continually remind you that you seem to have a problem with understanding other people’s points?
Ya, except it’s not 1+1=3 and that’s an extremely obtuse analogy. If he had said something like “I believe the VA is part of the Department of Aviation” and then corrected himself, we’d have something to talk about. That’s a known fact and we’d have been left scratching our heads saying “Obama probably should have known better…”
This isn’t fact. It’s opinion. All policy decisions are. And it’s an opinion which he held for what? 24 hours? We’ve been debating this stupid topic longer than that!
If you don’t agree that it’s admirable, then why do you think it’s “the right thing to do”?
The main reason people are saying, “well at least he changed his mind” is because we’re just not used to hearing that. For the last 8 years, we’ve been told “1 + 1 = 3, and if you say otherwise you’re stupid (and a traitor).”
It’s like the breath of fresh air right after a fart floats away; you wish you hadn’t encountered it in the first place, but at least it’s not there anymore.
Sorry for riling the Obama fans club. I’m done with the thread.
You forgot your ball…
At least Obama wasn’t sarcastic when he apologized to the veterans community.