You know, I don’t want to think I’ve become an Obama Kool-Aid® drinker who simply chooses to uncritically adore everything the guy does, but I’m really having a hard time feeling the outrage for the outrageous things he’s been up to.
Europe: Maybe I missed the relevant story, but I didn’t see him groveling for forgiveness and doling out fellations to the EU. I saw a visit wherein he respected everyone as equals and delivered a message along the lines of, “Yeah, that was a tough 8 years for everyone. Don’t hold it against us and we won’t hold it against you.”
Stimulus package: I missed the part where Obama is solving the problem by printing more cash. Has he been doing that for reals or did someone just toss that ball out there and someone picked it up? And as for the ‘bailouts,’ aren’t those technically loans anyway? And if not, so what? The alternative was … ?
Summit of the Americas: He’s cozying up to Chavez? Really? Or was he simply NOT undermining any respectful reconciliation with Venezuela? Looked to me more like Chavez was playing the part of the drunk sorority girl hitting on the BMOC. He was the one whoring the photo ops with Obama.
Torture docs: Admitting to secret information everyone already knew jeopardizes US security? Makes him look like he can’t keep secrets? The secrets were not leaked on his watch, he simply admitted the horrific use by the previous administration of activities which have been proven ineffective for their intended purpose: sincere and honest compromise of sensitive information. Looks to me like an apology to the rest of the world for the previous administration’s hypocritical activities in support of his overall program of, “Let’s not rehash past misdeeds and move into the future.” He’s not prosecuting the morally flexible thugs who were allowed to torture—they’re protected from that under the constitution anyway or am I not grasping the concept of “ex post facto” laws?
Why is it so hard for so many supposedly intelligent people to see that Latin & Middle Eastern & Asian cultures require a leader to save face when they are wrong? That you can’t back them into a corner and demand concession without essentially asking them to resign?
Don’t answer that last, I know the answers already: Politicians don’t care about right/wrong. The “shepherds” of the people have looked to division of the populace to build they constituency since before Abraham suggested Jewish men mutilate themselves. And journalists? They’ve always been whores, but have of late become accustomed to the trick of ghastly spin exposing the hero as the charlatan rather than the trick of shoring up the self-esteem of the very populace that feeds them.
Obama’s a good guy, I think. And really smart. And emotionally intelligent. And too late.
–Inigo
Just a WAG, but I think that was intended as irony.
As for the OP: thank you for expressing what has been at the back of my mind for several weeks now. I don’t remember this level of completely mis-led hysteria against a president in my lifetime (and I remember back to Eisenhower). Sure, lots of presidents have done things that lots of people disagreed with and criticized them for, and a lot of that criticism was ideologically driven (and a lot of it wasn’t).
But this is just incredible. People who want other people to be terrified of Obama are just making stuff up out of their ass!
These tax revolt people (not the real ones, the Fox News ones) have got to be the top of the cream, though. Have any of their taxes gone up in this administration? Or have they not in fact gone down, if only a little? Was the current economic mess not engineered by our microcephalic former president and his cronies, all of which you supported like crazy? And you have nothing constructive to say, you just stand on the sidelines, crying “NO” as loud as you can.
For the record, I’m not a liberal or even a Democrat, I’m a libertarian. Even at that, I find Obama to be mostly sensible and not ideologically driven, except in areas of civil rights, which I support. I’m nervous about health care reform, but I’m willing to wait and see what is proposed. I’m nervous about the long-term consequences of having a budget this huge, but I don’t have a viable alternative myself and I haven’t heard one proposed. At least he acknowledges that it’s a problem that we have to concern outselves with now.
So far, Obama is doing better than I would have expected. Chill, people.
Roddy
I’m usually too busy quelling my own personal irrational anger at those who are being irrationally angry over Obama to worry about much else politically.
F’instance, I couldn’t help but notice one of my former classmates on the Facebook joining a group about an anti-Obama film that claims Barrack’s actions are further examples of the elite and their plan to loot the middle class, enslave the western world and enlist the New World Order.
One World Bank.
Centralized Government.
Dogs and cats sleeping together.
Plenty of Kool-Aid to be had by all.
Personally I think the Prez is doing the best he can with what he has and is doing better than reasonably expected in most areas. I will reserve judgement for another 3 years and then, if Obama passes the Reagan test, I’ll vote for him again.
Ask yourself in 2012 - are you better off than you were in 2008?
I have always proudly called myself a conservative. That doesn’t mean I’ve always voted republican, and indeed, I consider the current state of the GOP to be more radical than conservative, but I still could never honestly call myself a liberal. When Obama won the election, I was intrigued but skeptical. When he was inaugurated I was even more skeptical, and during the first couple of months, I found myself longing for McCain.
But I’m starting to like him.
He handled the pirate situation well. He handled the torture memos well. He is handling the issue of possible prosecutions about as well as anyone could reasonably expect him to, and he’s sticking up for Israel. He is smart, articulate, and sincere. Even during the election, I didn’t have anything against him personally. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here: He ran the cleanest presidential campaign I have witnessed in my life, and whatever I’ve thought about his politics, I have always believed him to be a genuinely good person. He is cannier than Carter and more upright than Clinton, and yet he doesn’t make an issue of either. Love him or hate him, he’s got character and intelligence. I’ve got to ask: Where the hell was he in '04?! He would have eaten Bush’s lunch. Fuck man, I voted for Kerry in '04! I would have voted for Obama in a heartbeat.
The thing I probably like most about him is that he’s got the freepers and other assorted right-wingnuts spitting blood, and anyone who pisses off fundamentalist Christians to the point where they start talking and acting like campus communists automatically has my friendship and a blank check for the future.
I am still very skeptical of his stimulus package. Still, if this works–or even if it doesn’t work but doesn’t fuck things up too badly–I could definitely see myself voting for him in 2012.
I’m definitely starting to come around to his view of things. As it turns out, it never really was that far from my own.
I’ve been okay with everything except he has been pretty slow in naming political appointees. Also, while I very much want smart, capable people at the helm I’m surprised at how appointee after appointee at my own agency have hailed from Harvard. What, like no other Ivy is good enough?
I think this is what’s so jarring about the guy. So many people allowed themselves to get pushed to one party or the other when the nation started to tear in half–those who considered themselves conservatives were pushed into the Republican camp, Liberals into the Democratic. And as the gap widened and Bush’s “You’re with us or against us” doctrine took an ever tighter stranglehold on our collective minds, “reasonable” points of view became hypocritical–you can’t be liberal AND own a gun, you can’t be conservative AND want government involvement in business, and above all you can’t be a world leader AND allow other world leaders a voice…
Pretty soon, there were no Republicans left–just NotLiberals, and Democrats became NotConservatives. Enter Obama with his needle & thread attitude and those on The Right see a spineless pussy who’ll buy the predatory world’s forgiveness with what remained of our dignity and resources, The Left see a Radish who played them for votes only to turn around and shake the hands of the devils of the NotDemocratic party, selling out the gays in favor of such insanity as making overtures to The Other Americans in an attempt to bring everyone back to the middle ground where everyone gets some and nobody gets all.
So here’s hoping that those shrill and frightened minorities who still cling to the one-sided propaganda of Mother Jones and Human Events continue to pull ever harder in their own direction and one day simply pop off the the body of the USA like the irritating little skin tags they are.
You’ve summed it up very nicely, although I’m a bit more pessimistic than you about where the extremists from both sides go. They never quite disappear, and when they do leave the field, it’s more of an explosion than a pop.
I’ll also add that personally, I’d love to see the day when gays are allowed to marry, and I do believe I will sooner rather than later.
The Federal Reserve has been expanding the money supply, not the White House. The goals appear to be to combat deflation and to keep interest rates low. About $900 billion has been created in the past 7 months.
Yes, the bailouts are loans. However, some of these loans may not repaid (I’m looking at you, AIG), resulting in real losses for taxpayers.
A major proposed alternative is to send distressed financial companies into government receivership. Appropriate government entities would spend taxpayer money to restructure the failed institutions and sell off the viable parts of the businesses, with taxpayers absorbing the remaining losses. The Obama administration is arguing that bailouts are a less expensive solution, while others are arguing that this is incorrect and that comprehensively cleaning up financial sector in one fell swoop is actually more cost-effective.
I think Obama is doing the best he can given the practical limitations imposed by the political system. I do think the stimulus bill is mostly crap, is a big waste of money, and that the funds should have been spent in other ways. I’ve been satisfied with his diplomatic skills to date, both home and abroad. As for releasing the torture memos, to me that’s just one more instance of him demonstrating the problems that he has inherited, fair enough, but hardly unusual for a president beginning his first term. However, I hope that Obama doesn’t genuinely believe all the optimistic talk he presents to the public, as I find the views he presents to be an unreasonably wishful interpretation of reality. Yes, at the end of the day, I know he’s just a politician, and that’s what they do. But he did run on a platform that included greater honesty and transparency, after all.
I read his sunshine and kittens attitude as him handing out rope to the ‘questionable’ leaders of the world. They can use that rope to tie their own nooses or to haul themselves onboard with the rest of the world. In other words, Chavez and others are getting an opportunity to not be our adversaries. And I think Obama is smart enough to pull the lever on the first one who seems to be abusing the good gesture.
All these people who complain about any steps he takes to try to fix the economy are the same people who would bitch at the firemen for getting their house wet!
The outrage you’re seeing is manufactured outrage. It’s manufactured by various partisan think tanks. I guess we should be happy that there is still something being manufactured in the U.S., but somehow I can’t get too thrilled about it.
Exactly. It’s the same thing he’s been doing with congressional republicans, and it’s got parallels with what he did with Rush. I think we’re zeroing in on a modus operandi. (One I like.)
I was going to start a new thread, but heck, I’ll put this here. Today, after signing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, (story, pictures, video), the President, First Lady, Vice President Biden and Mrs. Biden, and former President Clinton all went out to plant some trees. Here’s some nice pictures, and a video. This is all being portrayed by the freepers as a nefarious plan to build an private army. :rolleyes: I can just imagine how freaked out they are by these pictures.
He was an Illinois state senator, and was running for Senator for Illinois, and giving the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, one of the best speeches ever given at a political convention. THAT was when he made everyone (who saw it) sit up and say “WHOAH! WHO’S THAT?” and many, if not most, of them said to themselves “That man will be the first black president, mark my words.” Though most of us (I felt the same way) thought it would be in 2012, 2016 or maybe even 2020. But we needed him now more than ever, and though I was a skeptic, I am so glad we got him.
I can’t wait to see the look on Chavez’s face when we give him enough rope to hang us with only to pull the covers off before he gets the chance when and if he messes up.
And the Iranian guy too.
Possibly Castro and Castro II but they might be sincere this time.
I’m a big Obama fan (check my Location) and have been mostly pleased so far. I think he’s been doing remarkably well with the cards he was dealt. On Iraq, Afghanistan, stem cells, the environment, torture, diplomacy, Gitmo, etc., I like what I’m seeing.
My criticisms thus far would have to be that (1) although I understand Keynesian economics and accept that we have to “prime the pump,” our national wealth isn’t infinite and we already have a ginormous Federal deficit, (2) why did so many of the President’s appointees have tax problems that weren’t revealed until their selection was announced, (3) early indications are that Obama is taking a similar state-secrets approach to Bush, and (4) he’s sending mixed signals on strengthening gun control (I understand the politics of it, but I don’t like it).