# The left's massively dishonest criticism of Obama **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 20, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905 "2011-09-20T04:09:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/21 "2011-10-01T18:20:55Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > My criticism of President Obama is that he has not been more effective. I want another Franklin Roosevelt, and a new New Deal. The problem is that there is an organized grassroots-and-astroturf opposition to any such thing, that did not exist in FDR’s time. It’s like the plutocrats of the failed “Business Plot” against FDR decided to be patient, build things slowly and quietly, and eventually get everything they wanted legally and democratically. And succeeded. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/22 "2011-10-02T13:35:38Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Heck, I’d like to see him _become_ partisan and brutal - it’s entertaining. It would at least bring some balance to the country for both sides to use the same rules. Instead, the Democrats are playing checkers while the Republicans are playing hand grenades at twenty paces. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/23 "2011-10-02T14:00:00Z")
Far from being some nut fringe position, this is essentially the GOP party platform now. Just watch the primary debates. Even Romney, the so-called moderate, essentially contends that the economy is in the shitter because of Obama’s Socialism. I get that large swaths of the GOP are opposed to evidence-based reasoning, but are they also abandoning simple notions of the linearity of time? What next, A is not A? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/24 "2011-10-02T14:05:24Z")
I wish this thread was in the pit. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/25 "2011-10-02T14:30:06Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > … shows Obama is the strongest and most effective president […] that the Democrats have had since Lyndon Johnson So in his universe Bill Clinton did not exist? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/26 "2011-10-02T19:25:24Z")
Nothing dishonest about most of Obama’s criticism. He passed a health care plan they kept the thieving health insurance companies in the loop. They have been jacking rates up like crazy . They are the problem, not part of the solution. He did not close GItmo. He said he would. He did finally get rid of DADT. That is a promise fulfilled. If he prosecutes a few bankers, he will get re-elected. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/27 "2011-10-02T19:36:15Z")
That bone-headed article quoted by the OP is what is “dishonest.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/28 "2011-10-02T20:02:44Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > I wish this thread was in the pit. It should be. Or GD. Doesn’t belong in Elections, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/29 "2011-10-02T21:55:04Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I get that large swaths of the GOP are opposed to evidence-based reasoning, but are they also abandoning simple notions of the linearity of time? What next, A is not A? “We make our own reality”. The GOP is heavily faith based, and not just in a religious sense. If they believe something to be true, if they want something to be true hard enough, then it is true. Logic and facts are besides the point; what matters is belief, faith and sheer force of will. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/30 "2011-10-02T21:57:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “We make our own reality”. The GOP is heavily faith based, and not just in a religious sense. If they believe something to be true, if they want something to be true hard enough, then it is true. Logic and facts are besides the point; what matters is belief, faith and sheer force of will. The GOP is not the Ingsoc Party. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/31 "2011-10-02T22:03:06Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “We make our own reality”. The GOP is heavily faith based, and not just in a religious sense. If they believe something to be true, if they want something to be true hard enough, then it is true. Logic and facts are besides the point; what matters is belief, faith and sheer force of will. > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The GOP is not the Ingsoc Party. :rolleyes: Good observation if you remove the “not” and the rolleyes smiley. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/32 "2011-10-02T22:19:47Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The GOP is not the Ingsoc Party. :rolleyes: Current evidence indicates that this is not true. (Well, I will accept that there are some points of difference on exactly how to drown the government in the bathtub.) ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/33 "2011-10-02T22:44:08Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The GOP is not the Ingsoc Party. :rolleyes: For the first time since WWII, the country is extremely polarized on both regional and partisan lines. Simultaneously, you have a media environment that is both extremely fragmented and at its weakest ability to do factual reporting since WWII. Because of these and other trends – perhaps post-modernism generally – facts have taken on a political character that goes pretty deep. I’m not talking about political philosophies here, like what the right solution to global warming is. I’m talking about really basic things, like whether the atmosphere has increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide. What the GOP has figured out is that, at this moment in history and with its particular coalition, there is little need to make evidence-based arguments. Call it the Frank Luntzing of the party. You can claim that Obama created the Great Recession even though the vast majority of jobs were lost _before he came into office_. You can center your entire presidential campaign on a fiction: that President Obama went around the world and apologized for America, as Mitt Romney has. You can claim that Obama has presided over unprecedented tax increases, and set up government panels to determine whether you get a CAT scan – the opposite of the truth. That’s just politics, perhaps you say. If so, where is the Democratic analogue to all of this? I’ve just named a half-dozen \*facts \*that are central questions in modern politics that high-level members of the GOP openly and regularly lie about with little or no contradiction, much less retraction. Where is the Democratic equivalent? All politicians tell untruths. But only one party has demonstrable falsehoods at the center of its current platform. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/34 "2011-10-03T00:42:53Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > For the first time since WWII, the country is extremely polarized on both regional and partisan line. Not really along regional lines. The division isn’t North/South or East/West or Coasts/Flyover, it’s City/Country. Look at [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectionMapPurpleCounty.jpg) “red and blue” map of U.S. electoral behavior, broken down to the county level, and with a given county’s Dem/Pub vote shares (in the 2008 presidential election) shown as blue, red, or some shade of purple. Note: 1. Very few counties are pure blue or pure red; most are some shade of purple. 2. A partisan division between the cities and the hinterlands is clear. Any county that **is** pure red is rural, any county that is pure blue is urban, and the further you go from the urban cores, the redder it gets. [Here,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cartlinearlarge.png) BTW, is the same map rendered as a cartogram with the sizes of the counties distorted to reflect their relative populations. It’s trippy. When a political contest or any kind of conflict comes down to City vs. Countryside, usually, in the long run, the city wins. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/35 "2011-10-03T00:47:48Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > The GOP is not the Ingsoc Party. :rolleyes: That was true before 1980. Movement conservatism and neoconservatism and this new Tea Party iteration of paleoconservatism are all pretty damned Orwellian phenomena, and they have done bad things to the party. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/36 "2011-10-03T02:04:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not really along regional lines. The division isn’t North/South or East/West or Coasts/Flyover, it’s City/Country. You are of course correct that the biggest divide is city/country. But there are also regional divisions, if only as a consequence of the former phenomenon. The Union and West Coast generally has a liberal majority and the Confederates and inland West generally has a conservative majority, and – the newish part – this largely maps onto the parties. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/37 "2011-10-09T00:53:40Z")
One of the most effective tactics against Obama is to try to use his fear of conflict against him. Basically business groups and right wing ideologues will say ‘Obama wants to hurt business’ or ‘Obama is a radical partisan’. Obama will respond by moving to the right and giving business and RW ideologues what they want. All this does is make them scream louder. There was an interview on NPR where they were discussing this, and how business has actually done really well under this ‘anti-business’ president. When interviewed, some high ranking businessmen knew they had it good under Obama (not sure who they were) but they knew the more they complained the more Obama would give them what they wanted. For whatever reason this tactic doesn’t seem to work when the left use it on him. Sadly it works. Obama wants to be liked so badly he probably cares what someone like Victor Hanson thinks. And will become wimpier, softer and more complacent to win his approval. It sucks, he had a lot of potential. ---
**Author:** ![AbloyProtec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9f8e36/32.png) [@AbloyProtec](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AbloyProtec)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/38 "2011-10-09T21:41:22Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > So in his universe Bill Clinton did not exist? I miss Bill Clinton. What a great time to be growing up and experiencing life. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/39 "2011-10-11T06:30:23Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > There was an interview on NPR where they were discussing this, and how business has actually done really well under this ‘anti-business’ president. When interviewed, some high ranking businessmen knew they had it good under Obama (not sure who they were) but they knew the more they complained the more Obama would give them what they wanted. For whatever reason this tactic doesn’t seem to work when the left use it on him. Which is why I’m not voting for him again. Short-term lesser of two evils, sure. But it’s time to cut the dude loose. Let Perry drive us into a ditch, and elect a real progressive (with no debts to Obama) in 2016. If Obama wants my vote, he can do the following: 1. End all illegal/dubiously legal Clinton/Bush War on Terror policies, from drone attacks in countries we are not at war with, to secret prisons, to extraordinary rendition, to holding anyone–_anyone_, anywhere–without trial for any length of time. 2. Let the Bush tax cuts expire, all of them–oh, he missed his chance, and decided to take a path designed to keep them. 3. Remind the Senate that there is exactly one Constitutional officer with actual veto power, and it isn’t “any Senator.” Since he already very deliberately and consciously took the irresponsible path on 2, I won’t vote for him. But if he does 1 AND 3 before say, Christmas, I might not start deliberately sabotaging his campaign offices. Though, really, the Dems should cut this putz loose. We were conned. Can we get an actual principled rule-of-law person or an actual progressive, at least one or the other? Heck, Kucinich wants the job, give it to him! ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905/40 "2011-10-11T09:09:39Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Far from being some nut fringe position, this is essentially the GOP party platform now. Just watch the primary debates. Even Romney, the so-called moderate, essentially contends that the economy is in the shitter because of Obama’s Socialism. > > I get that large swaths of the GOP are opposed to evidence-based reasoning, but are they also abandoning simple notions of the linearity of time? What next, A is not A? It seems that this is indeed the case. Wasn’t it Saint Ronnie who said that “facts are stupid things”? As you put so well, today’s pubbies would add, “and basic logic is stupid, too.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lefts-massively-dishonest-criticism-of-obama/596905.md?page=3)