You’re right, but it’s difficult for the POTUS to not weigh in on an issue that’s dominating the national conversation.
Meanwhile, flickster is saying that he should have hurled himself into negotiating a different site.
A big part of being president is playing the role of president.
Acting presidential.
It’s important for the overall morale of the nation, and it was Carter’s greatest failing. Reagan did it extremely well, though he didn’t do much of anything else. 
It’s entirely inappropriate for the head of state to weigh in on a disorderly conduct charge in a small city in Massachusetts, especially if the accused is an old friend.
Same with this mosque issue. Below your paygrade.
I seriously hope somebody gives him an ass chewing about this. He still hasn’t got the message. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s important not to make the same mistake twice.
He didn’t need to be personally involved, but could have made sure the right team was in place to get the job done. He would have come off as being sensitive to an issue important to a majority of the public, while also showing leadership. But, no…
One day he says they have every right to build the mosque where they want to, and the next day he says he wants to make it clear that although they have the right to build he won’t provide an opinion about whether or not they actually should. Maybe I shouldn’t find it surprising that so many people can’t make that distinction. I think the Westboro Baptist Church has the right to spread their hatred far and wide, but I certainly don’t think they should. See the difference?
Damn straight!
The guy got a Noble Prize in his first year in office, for Pete’s sake… and he didn’t even need to lift a finger, just be Black!
:rolleyes:
I don’t know what you think you were trying to say here.
I’m glad Obama said what he said about the New York Mosque. Because guess what, he’s right. The people who are trying to deny them the right to build there are discriminating on the basis of religion, and as far as I’m concerned that’s bigotry. If that means 70% of the country are bigots, then that’s the sad reality we live in. I’m glad we at least have a President with the balls to tell them they’re wrong.
As far as Obama’s overall performance, I give him a B+. He’s done about as well as could be expected with 40% of the Senate determined to block everything he does. Health care reform is a big deal, and so is financial reform, despite the fairly limited media coverage it’s received. He’s winding down the Iraq War, and I believe we’ll see an end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell soon as well (not soon enough for me, but better late than never). Plus he’s appointed two Justices to the Supreme Court that appear to be solid progressives. All in all, not a bad couple years’ work.
In fairness, he also had to be Not George W. Bush – something his predecessor failed to accomplish in 8 years in office, but which Obama had already achieved on day 1.
We have a wiener!
[THREAD CLOSED]
I’ll take a stab:
Leadership - D
This isn’t the ability to make a good speech, this is an ability to define what he wants and fight for it until he gets it. Obama has been way too vague on what he wants and has left far too many details up to Congress. As an example, very little of the health care bill was defined by Obama. He took what he Congress made, he didn’t push Congress to pass his ideas. Oddly, while Obama makes a better speech and people like him more, Bush was a better leader since he was far more effective at getting Congress to follow his lead.
Economy - C
First I should say, I usually don’t blame/credit a president for the economy. Private market forces beyond government control have a far larger influence. Of the governments influence, Congress holds almost all of it. The President really can’t do much more than speeches and pushing Congress to follow his will (see above for Obama’s score on that). So while the economy is a huge issue politically, realistically I can’t blame/credit Obama. That being said, some of what was done for the economy was just continuing what Bush did (TARP). Some was taking Bush ideas and pushing them to the next level (auto bailouts). And some was almost entirely influenced by Congress (stimulus). At the time, Congress loaded the bailout with a lot of pork and had a clear ‘We won, haha, we’re gonna suck the public teat dry!’ attitude. Obama should have used his influence the reign that in, and he didn’t. Thus the stimulus was a lot more ineffective than it could have been.
The deficit - B
When times are tough, the government should spend more money. So I have little problem with the deficit skyrocketing. It’s expected, we’re in a bad economy. The only way to prevent that would have been to cut government services at a time when more and more Americans needed them. The time for balancing the budget is later, when we’re in good times. So the issue here isn’t that Obama allowed the deficit to grow, it’s what the money was spent on. As I said above, I think a lot of the stimulus was spent on paying back Democrat supporters rather than actual stimulus, so we got less bang for the buck than we could have. Still, Obama could have made far larger mistakes, so he gets credit for not screwing up worse than he did.
BP Spill - B
I have no problem with government action to halt the spill. Realistically, there were few choices but to let BP handle it. The reason he doesn’t get an A here is that the government could have done a far better job of aiding people affected by the spill than it did. It took too long to respond to the human cost of the spill. However, it was no Katrina so some credit there.
Military - C
Obama took three months thinking about what to do in Afghanistan. I understand it’s complex. I understand it’s a tough choice. I understand that in many ways there is no good answer. I also understand he took THREE MONTHS to make a choice while US troops were fighting and dying. However, it took him a day to change the leadership in Afghan when someone got mouthy with him. It seems to me his priorities aren’t exactly what I wish they’d be.
Foreign Relations - C
On the good side, the world views the US more favorably than it did under Bush. On the down side, so what? To a fair degree, our relations with allies won’t change regardless of their public opinion of us. For example, Japan and South Korea will remain allies because of nearby military threats even if their citizens are protesting in the streets against the US (as evidenced by the fact their citizens have protested in the streets, yet they are still our allies). Where foreign relations matter are our enemies and rivals, not our allies. Given that relations with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have either stayed the same or gotten worse, I’m not seeing how Obama’s foreign relations are better than Bush’s. Still, it’s nice to not see mass protests against America in European countries.
Law Enforcement - B
He’s finally moving towards a semi-sane drug policy by not going after medical marijuana in states that allow it. There’s the possibility he may move even more towards a rational drug policy, although it’s clearly not a high priority for him. So that’s very good. OTOH, his illegal immigration policy is a total mess. He’s not alone; Bush’s, Clinton’s, the first Bush’s, etc immigration policies were a mess too. However the issue has blown up on Obama’s watch and IMHO, he’s really fumbling it. It’s hard to piss off both the right and the left on an issue, but Obama is doing it.
Civil Rights - C
Mostly this is gay rights, which he hasn’t done anything for or against yet really. Also included in this is his management of the race issue. He did brilliantly with it on the campaign, but that entire Gates thing was a total fumble. Other than that, he seems to do a pretty good job of not getting mired down in it. Which is hard to do when some of your supporters claim EVERYONE opposing him is racist while some of his opponents really are racist.
Integrity - A
No blowjobs in the oval office. No plumbers fixing leaks. No oil companies having secret meetings. I disagree with a fair number of his policies, but morally speaking, the man has done nothing wrong.
Adjustment - B
Sometimes, a politician supports something that just plain sucks. Sometimes situations change and require a change in a politicians stances. Some call a politician changing his mind ‘waffling’. I call it a good thing. I want someone who will change their position when given reason to. Obama’s switch on Gitmo shows that he’s able to do that. His actions in Iraq and Afghanistan compared to his rhetoric before Nov 2008 shows that he’s able to do that. Hell, even the beer summit showed he can do that. However, once it was obvious how unpopular health care reform as Congress was doing it and how many parliamentarian tricks it’d take to pass, he should have changed his approach and he didn’t.
Politically - C+
To his credit, he actually achieved a lot so far. The stimulus would have passed no matter what given the economic and political conditions at the time. However, health care is a major deal. I don’t like it, how it passed, or how little it actually does, but this is still a major deal. If he does nothing else of consequence the rest of his term, he’ll have still achieved more than Clinton did in 8 years. However, he’s wrecked the democrat party doing so. It’s too soon to say how badly the coming election will go for them of course, but overall the nation was downright giddy about democrats in 2008 and Obama has totally destroyed that. These days, even most supporters are taking an attitude of ‘well, republicans are worse…’ rather than ‘democrats are great…’
He just can’t win on the mosque thing. If he says they shouldn’t build it, he’s derided for caving to bigotry. If he says they should build it, he’s derided for insensitivity to the memory of 9/11. If he says that it’s a local matter for the people of New York City and not something that the President of the United States needs to weigh in on, he’s derided for being an elitist who doesn’t care about the issues that concern the American people, and also for caving to bigotry, and also for insensitivity to the memory of 9/11.
I’m posting this without reading anyone else’s response first because I want to be able to say what was most important to me about Obama
First the bad:
I think he could have been more forceful on many issues. Like many liberals, we had hopes of someone who could lead the country past some of its divisiveness that’s cropped up in the last few decades. That didn’t happen. To me, that may be more the fault of high expectations than Obama’s leadership. After the 2008 election, many of us wanted to be more bipartisan. We saw the election of a black man as that first stepping stone. But maybe we neglected to realize that all throughout history, when minorities and the powerless pushed back and made some landmark achievement, there was always an immediate blowback.
Jim Crow laws passed immediately after the slaves were set free. The KKK came into being. When even the discussion of gay marriage was on the public’s minds, there was an immediate push to pass anti-gay marriage laws in many states. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, he wasn’t welcomed by everyone but rather attacked and threatened. Time and time again in history we see that the establishment, whether they were an oligarchy based on race or wealth or ability never accepts the change immediately.
Maybe there wasn’t much Obama could do. As soon as it became likely that he was going to be president, people would be gearing up to oppose him at every turn. I don’t see much of the failures to bring bipartisanship to Washington as his fault. It was those who reacted to him. There are books written about how hypocritical the GOP and conservatives are being about every vote, declining to support things now because a black Dem is in charge when they thought it was the best course of action when they were in charge. Some of it’s standard politics and some of it is a thinly-veiled racial fear that maybe whites aren’t going to be the only ones in power for much longer.
And now for the good:
Obama has proven to be a great leader at making pragmatic decisions about laws. Yes, I want him to pass more liberal laws, but the laws that I would love wouldn’t make it past committee. But from his earlier sucesses like the anti-work discrimination Lily Ledbetter Act to Health Care reform and Wall Street reform, we will be thanking Obama and his vision for decades to come. The laws he passed and will pass will be so good that the GOP will, and has, been taking credit for. How many governors and GOP Congressmen decried the stimulus yet took credit for it in their districts? Obama has shown that when he can get all the Dems to follow him and maybe a couple of Reps, he can pass things that are far-reaching and good for America.
He brokered a new nuclear deal with Russia. He got rid of ineffective dummy missile systems in Poland that wouldn’t have been able to accomplish their designated function (protection from possible Iranian missiles). He apologized for America’s arrogance to the world (which is a good thing, despite what anyone says. Let every conservative show me an arrogant prick they LIKE hanging out with and I’ll show you a liar). He’s not afraid to talk about race or religion or expand the functions of government into legitimate areas of concern. By leaving Iraq and focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan, he’s actually reducing terrorism instead of perpetuating it.
Oh, and he probably saved the entire world from a domino economic catastrophe. He did it knowing that the GOP would be on his ass about increased government spending. He played (or was played into) the stereotypical big-spending Democrat but wasn’t afraid to articulate why sometimes government is good and government is necessary. For all the idiots who blather on and on about how government is always bad, Obama is able to show certain restraint into simply becoming an opposing voice for the sake of opposition by telling people that yes, sometimes government is necessary, like when the world’s financial systems are crashing down. And sometimes it’s not necessary, like intruding into the bedroom lives of ordinary Americans.
Under Obama, Guantanamo is no longer a black mark on America’s morality. Though there are plenty of other Bush holdovers that I’d like him to get rid of, to his credit he is evaluating them carefully, choosing to keep some and ditch others, instead of a lesser man who would simply keep them all or get rid of them all quickly. He’s not liberal enough isn’t a bad thing if being super liberal would cost too much political capital. We all know Dems are more suceptible to accusations of security just like Reps are more suceptible to accusations of racism. Besides, I have no doubt that he supports things like gay marriage and increased immigration but it would simply be foolish for him politically to say it
I think the problem with Obama is that he’s too intellectual.
As in, he believes that if he gets enough opinions on the subject, he’ll get the perfect solution. Or if he studies a problem long enough, he’ll find the winning answer. Or if he gathers enough people into the same room to discuss a problem, those people will converge upon the single, most logical answer to any given problem.
It’s unfortunate that things don’t always work that way. As a leader, it’s all right for him to say “this is what we’re going to do because I’m the one in charge and I’m saying this is what we’re going to do.”
And yet, despite what I’ve written above, I still think Obama is a fabulous President. I think he’s doing a good job and could be doing a great job if only he’d go out and do it rather than sit back and wait for everyone to see what may be perfectly logical for him. Who cares if they don’t agree. They’re not there to agree. They’re there to accept and do.
Bush frequently tried to make the point that we weren’t at war with Islam, but with extremist elements within it. And yes, that was an attempt at leadership. His base, in particular, certainly didn’t want to hear it at the time.
I think it’s a good thing when our leaders try to steer us away from our baser instincts. Too often they try to encourage and capitalize on them.
“Right wing nut”?
You are way out of line for Great Debates and you are going to be Warned on your next foray into insult–however mild you perceive it.
[ /Moderating ]
Bush’s statement of tolerance for Islam might have been just as easily motivated by realpolitik. Though not a wildly popular sentiment with his base, his newly minted status as The Leader should carry him through, nothing easier than overlooking what you don’t want to see.
The stark fact is this: anything that supports our enemies number one propaganda point, that America is at war with Islam, is a Bad Thing. At the barest minimum, the Bushiviks would require the cooperation of many Muslim nations. Not to mention avoiding a brisk business at Al Queda recruiting stations.
Now, as it happens, I pretty much believe him, I think he means it in a luke-warm sort of way. But the reality is such that he would have had so say so anyway. Reasons of national security.
Ad hominems? Really now? How did I disqualify myself over that?