I am pretty liberal and have leaned heavily Democrat lately, and so are most of my friends and people I Facebook with. Because of this self-selection, I hear a lot about the stupid things that Romney and the Republicans have done, but I haven’t heard much about the other side. If there is anything, let me have it.
I posted this is GQ and not Debates on purpose. I am looking for objective answers. Stuff that you disagreed with is not what I’m looking for. Please do not post on policy except where it is provably false, and I will expect an unbiased cite. I’m thinking stuff about the world’s reaction to Romney’s recent overseas trip and statements made there, non-affiliated, well-known economists not being able to make Romney’s tax plan work, and similar. What am I not hearing about?
Your question is impossible to answer. There is nothing objective about whether Obama has done something stupid lately or not.
Hmm. Okay, maybe stupid is hard to quantify. Will you accept “widely held by objective or disinterested parties to have been a dumb move”? Basically, I’m looking for balance in my information, and I am aware that my current sources are biased in the direction I prefer. I want to hear the stuff I don’t want to have heard, if that makes sense.
An example is the way that Romney indirectly insulted the culture and worth ethic of Palestinians on his goodwill tour. The international press had a field day with that. Is there anything that the world at large thinks was a similarly boneheaded move by Obama?
The veep did say something which (if taken out of context) is pretty damn stupid:
Biden’s Remarks
Biden told a crowd in Danville, Virginia, two days ago that Romney would “let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put you all back in chains.”
Then :
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQQFFO9yE3UR1lSqVya-K5G2mNAg?docId=31a7322b809f4147bba1f36f50663caa
*Vice President Joe Biden, who will be in Florida as Republicans gather to nominate their presidential ticket, on Tuesday compared GOP critics of the Obama administration’s Wall Street reforms to “squealing pigs.”
Biden’s comments showed he has no intention of softening his attack-dog rhetoric, despite widespread criticism of remarks he made last week in which he said presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney and other Republicans would put Americans “back in chains” in order to unshackle Wall Street.
Appearing before a raucous crowd in downtown Minneapolis, Biden said a Democratic-led Congress had approved a law reining in the Wall Street excesses that contributed to the nation’s economic collapse four years ago. The Dodd-Frank law, which toughened financial-industry regulations after the 2008 meltdown, was approved despite strong objections from Republicans, including Romney, Biden said.
“Over the objections — where they sound like squealing pigs — over the objections of Romney and all of his allies, we passed some of the toughest Wall Street regulations in history,” Biden said.
*
So Biden apparently has only been opening his mouth to change feet. Mind you that’s part of his charm to me.
Obama is a polished professional who isn’t as prone to good ole boy mistakes like Biden and Romney. Other than policy, it is one of his big attractions (after having one of Will Farrell’s caricatures as prez.)
Obama continued the Patriot Act. He’s bush lite.
Not a General Question. Moved to Elections.
samclem, Moderator
Agreed, surprisingly.
You could try Politifact or Snopes to see if either he’s told any blatant falsehoods lately or whether any accusations made against him have turned out to be true. That said, if you find anything let us know - the Stupid Liberal Idea of the Day thread needs feeding.
Here are few things that got some notice:
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Not talking to the press much. This likely fed into the “not too many gaffes”. He broke this streak lately by having a press conference (Monday, I think).
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His staff lied/mislead about knowing the story of that steelworker that was in the PAC ad blaming Romney for losing his job and sort of blaming him for his wife losing insurance and then dying of cancer. It turns out the staff at least knew of the guy, and almost certainly knew his story, including the wife part.
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Biden certainly made a few - forgot what state he was in and did the whole “put y’all back in chains” thing.
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Here’s the big one (I almost forgot about, somehow). Obama said in a speech that business owners that rely on public goods (roads, bridges, an educated population) can’t take credit for the roads because “they didn’t build that”. He phrased it so awkwardly that it could pretty easily be taken to mean that small business owners “didn’t build” their own businesses. This was a pretty bad gaffe because it feeds into existing impressions that Obama and his administration are antagonistic to business.
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and 4) are not “stupid stuff Obama has done lately”; they’re examples of things the Republicans are trying to spin into looking that way. Not Obama’s fault in either case.
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is Biden, not Obama, but Biden definitely says dumb stuff on a semi-regular basis.
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I don’t know enough about to comment.
The WSJ today reports that Obama encouraged a private equity firm to buy out a failing business in a swing state. He of course has been also lambasting private equity lately as some big evil thing.
Meh. I don’t think anyone is smart enough to phrase every public utterance in such a way that no-one could take a snippet out of context to make it sound like something else (and if you did, I think your speech would end up sounding pretty weird).
The least you could do is put your fish in a bigger barrel to make it a challenge for me to shoot them.
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Obama does hold press conferences. Maybe not as much as we would like, but he certainly gets more hardball questioning than Mittens.
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So his staff knew of the story. It’s pretty compelling. And the ad, not connected with Obama, tells the truth. The guy lost his job thanks to Bain and Romney, lost his insurance thanks to Bain and Romney, wife gets cancer and can’t get proper treatment due to lack of insurance. A hard ad, but fair.
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The Biden “gaffe” was a true statement. The GOP wants us all to own our souls to the company store, as the old song went.
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The “you didn’t build that” line only appears inflammatory to those unable or unwilling to put it in context. I suspect it will have as much impact on the electorate as the 2008 “cling to guns and religion” comment, which is to say somewhere between diddly and squat.
Now let’s compare that to Romney’s authorized ad and stump speech about Obama’s welfare ruling. Everybody with any integrity has concluded that this attack is a lie. But Romney persists, because he’s race-baiting, pure and simple. He’s telling his white target audience “Obama wants to take your money and give it to his fellow niggers, no strings attached.”
I disagree - on the “you didn’t build that” in particular. It’s dangerous ground trying to explain to someone why they aren’t entirely responsible for their own success - this is true in life, and in politics. When broaching that ground (which, by the way, I think is entirely correct) you have to be ultra-precise in your phrasing. Obama wasn’t, and made a political mistake. Just because your opponents can make it look worse doesn’t make it not a mistake.
If we’re limiting ourselves to actual stupid actions then there really isn’t much to say - almost nothing of substance has happened in the political world in months, and likely won’t until election day. They don’t call it “silly season” for nothing.
Wow. I’m assuming you’re talking about this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443713704577603281330597966.html
That’s mighty far stretch to make that a mistake, Rand.
The OP wasn’t asking to compare them to Romney’s mistakes. Or Todd Akin’s. Or anybody elses.
I took the request to be: “what are the issues that the other side is attacking Team Obama with”. Trying to get “out of the bubble” if you will. I trust that they can evaluate the claims and their severity.
To paraphrase Jesus, you’re not concerned with the beam in Mitt’s eye but rather the speck in Obama’s.
Obama is not against private equity…
Me? What does this have to do with me? The OP asked for “stupid stuff” Obama has done lately. I provided a short list.
I happen to think it pales in comparison to the stupid shit Romney has done - picking Paul Ryan as his running mate being tops on the list. But that’s not the question of the thread.
If you can’t even answer the OP’s question without listing Romney’s mistakes instead then you might be suffering from the same problem identified in the OP - only hearing one side of the story and only being aware of the other side to the extent that you need to refute it.
Frankly, I don’t think Rand Rover really wants to try to defend the notion that it is. He did, after all post the first response to the thread, saying that no objective example was possible. I truly believe that Rand was just making a token effort to show willing.
OTOH, I’d be grateful for any evidence that President Obama has said that private equity, per se, is “some big evil thing,” as distinct from private equity that makes a habit of “strip and flip.”