Did we finally go back to the 500-post limit on threads, or were do you just have lots of downtime at work?
I think that the post count is more of a testament to how many people are interested in Obama's failures, than the actual number of his failures.
The Prez delivered the goods in December. Pleased the base with the repeal of DADT, pleased the indies with the tax bill, and pleased basically everybody with START. But this isn't the Obama success watch. Carry on.
I'll be honest, I'm a political tourist by most metrics. I don't keep copious notes of every legislative session. But so far, this lame-duck congress has passed... A repeal of DADT A New START treaty A 9/11 First Reponders Health Care bill... In each case, there was high profile Republican opposition (for one reason or another), and in each case, it still got through. Ok, so Obama failed with the DREAM act. I blame the anagram.
Did you eat your Wheaties this morning or something? You've been a thread closin' and openin' machine.
I am bummed about the DREAM act, but you can't win them all. It was a really important cultural and practical issue, however. I'm NOT complaining with the work of the lame duck congress at all. I also think that you are beginning to see the "change" that many on here mock. There was some good, solid republican support for important legislation this month even in the face of opposition by the republican leadership. 71 votes on new START is phenomenal when the top two republicans in the senate were against it. It won't be "kumbaya" in Washington, but the idea that people can disagree without being disagreeable and the ability to find common ground and do the possible seems to finally be taking hold. I'm excited for the next few years. A lot of economic signs point to some better days ahead and we have a "do something" congress that is doing good things. In the next two years, I think you will see Obama push some sensible deficit reduction proposals that the parties can find common ground on. This will include some cost cutting and tax overhaul to achieve fairness and a reasonable level of revenue. I'd LOVE to see them also address immigration in a reasonable manner and I think there is room for that to happen. On topic, I think Obama will really benefit from the last month in the polls. Even when he dipped to 45% (which is historically pretty good at this point in his first term) people continued to personally like him in the 70%s. So, if people start feeling good about the direction of the country and the economy and if job numbers start to go in a positive direction (and there are signs everywhere that this will happen) he will be in the catbird seat within 6 months. The republicans will either need to nominate a similar type of pragmatic moderate or they will get trounced (assuming a Palin or Gingrich type of lightning rod.)
Yeah, I was thinking that some of those threads are getting too long, and then I realized that I was the one responsible for it. Some threads get a lot of activity in this forum, and I don't want to keep closing them and starting new ones all the time, but I guess we can't let them go on forever either. New Year's resolution: I'm going to draw the line at about 2000 posts, which is in line with comments Huss had made some time ago in another forum.
I think a lot of these come back to the point someone mentioned before... that with the republicans in the majority they HAVE to start being more reasonable. They can't keep pretending it's all Obama's fault if they're holding the other side of the steering wheel.
Obama's poll numbers improve among moderate Republicans http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theti...ll-numbers-improve-among-moderate-republicans
Say what? I think the most interesting thing to watch in 2011 will be the relationship with the House Majority Republicans and the Senate Minority Republicans. The House Majority is going largely look like Steve Newlin from True Blood, with the true-believer attitude to match. They're Tea Party friendly, and psyching themselves up to believe that they have a national mandate to do things their way. The Senate Republicans, though... Well, if these last few weeks are going to be any indication, may be much more moderate and willing to broker a deal than the House may be able to stomach. I see McConnell having one hell of a 2011, possibly even losing his Leader status.
Sample size of 1, my wife the moderate Reep who voted for McCain, said she would vote for Obama in a rematch. Admittedly, Johnny Mac going rockers on DADT Repeal affected her, and she's not even pro-gay. But she's ready to let go on DADT. Defending it is quickly becoming an extremist position. Very quickly. It's rare to see something turn as fast as DADT has.
Glenn Greenwald nails it again, describing how Obama has succeeded in one of his key policy goals (albeit not one he made prominent in his campaign). Before I get the usual response to my posts, I am well aware that Barack Obama did not start this trend by any stretch, but he has been in office just about two years now. All this could have been substantially reversed if Obama wanted to. The fact that it has continued to become more authoritarian is because Obama has wanted it to.
We've been around on this before. This is certainly an area where many of us who support Obama are disappointed. As to your last sentence, I have to think that it should read ". . . because Obama felt he had to." Do you REALLY believe that he wants to keep Guantanmo open? That he wants to keep in place stuff that cuts against the right to habeus corpus? My guess is that as a constitutional scholar, this stuff must absolutely tear at him in a way that it probably didn't for Bush, but that the "stuff that he sees that we don't" has carried the day in a way that works against our civil rights. It's sad, but it is reality. I think he SHOULD be pushed more on the issue than he is. It SHOULD be an issue in the 2012 campaign (although, good luck finding a republican that will question this). The really sad fact is that most Americans just don't care. They don't care about prisoners as long as its not them. They don't care if their emails are scanned as long as they don't know its happening. The answer to the problem is one that a lot of us support but that would be political suicide for a democrat. We need to draw back from our role as the world's cop. We need to get out of other people's business where we control foreign governments. This is easier said than done as the world also looks to us to secure shipping and commerce for the planet. The argument that, "they hate us for our freedoms" as a justification for why we are targets is ridiculous. By that metric, Canada would be a major target for terrorism. So would Sweden and Ireland and every other country where there are not rigid, religious based rules. So, the cost of being that world's cop appears to be a sacrifice of our civil rights and a whopping price tag that keeps us in debt (come on spending hawks -- try to argue that our military and homeland security budgets aren't out of whack with the rest of the civilized world). So, in sum, I agree with you that this is an Obama failure, but knowing his history, I don't think its something he WANTED to happen. i don't think he would have campaigned on this stuff the way he did if he would have had access to the information he has now that is driving his decision making.
This is a tough one. How do we know what he really believes in his heart? I suppose we don't. At some point, does it matter? We are supposed to judge people by their actions, right? How much of your feeling is based on that you support the guy and you want him to really believe what you yourself believe? I do find that people are most disappointed not when someone they hate does something stupid, but more when the people they believe in the most do. I put no stock in him being a constitutional scholar, because he has proven, in my view, that he didn't learn a heck of a lot when he was. I don't know if Obama really wants to keep Gitmo open or not, but that's not the big question for me. The bigger question is does he believe in indefinite detention without trial (or regardless of the outcome of said trial), and I think he's really for that. Where the people are actually kept isn't that big of a deal. Unless the GOP 2012 nominee is Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, and as much as I hope for that it seems unlikely, you're right, it won't be an issue at all once the primaries are over. That's unfortunate. What's the point of running and winning if you don't at least try to enact the policies you really want? If Obama doesn't want us to be the world's cop, but he doesn't do anything about changing our role, why did he bother? Just to get a job that pays him half a million dollars each of the next four years? If you were to list all the things that you think Obama really believes in, and compared them to all the things he's actually done, what would you find? Has Obama done anything to reduce the size and scope and power of the federal government in any meaningful way? And it's not like he didn't have a lot to choose from, and I'm not even holding something like national health care against him in this discussion. George W. Bush asserted the right to kill anyone he unilaterally deemed a terrorist as long as they're outside the United States. That's a clear violation of due process. And yet Obama defends that completely. Were Americans clamoring for getting sexually molested at airports? I don't think so, and yet Obama's administration has given us that, and defended it in the face of near-universal scorn. I hear people say that Obama really doesn't care much about the Drug War, and yet his administration fought like hell to stop Proposition 19 in California, and bashes medical marijuana whenever it can. At some point the record has to matter. Either he always believed in authoritarian government, or he doesn't really but changed his mind in office, or he still doesn't but won't do anything about it. Take your pick, none of those three make him look anything but, um, really really not good. I know I use quite harsh language against Obama (and other politicians) on these boards, but it's hard for me not to in the face of the body of evidence they quickly pile up.
I would say this counts as Barack Obama failure. I really do wish he would make it difficult to find failure, instead of making it easier than breathing. http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/25/1988286/wikileaks-how-us-tried-to-stop.html This is either funny, or sad, maybe both: It gets better: Why would our fountain of failure try and stop a probe into stuff that we would all think that he doesn't like very much? A related question: How much of the authoritarian aspects of the Bush Administration has Barack Obama renounced? I would say virtually none, but I'm not even sure the word virtually is needed. The latter question is your answer to the former.
Not to defend Obama because I dislike many of the same garbage he carried over from Bush. But it's hard to believe that a president will take over and say "Wow, the last guy got away with LOTS of questionable stuff. I'm going to handcuff myself by going back to the pre-Bush years." I think we need courts to smack down executive excesses, but they have largely been inconsistent in doing so
Well, that's a slightly different point, to be fair. If true this report relates to US government pressure, under Obama, to try and affect someone else's courts. As we've found out in the UK, it seems that the Spanish courts jealously guard their independence. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/232320.stm The Spanish judge requesting the extradition of General Augusto Pinochet has issued the criminal indictment which charges him with crimes against humanity. The 285-page document includes allegations that Gen Pinochet was responsible for genocide, torture and terrorism, Judge Baltasar Garzon is also asking for the former Chilean ruler's assets to be frozen. Hmmm... Baltasar Garzon??? That name rings a bell?!?!?! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
He failed to create an UNpopular health care bill. While a majority of people oppose the bill, alot of them oppose it because it doesn't go far enough. Less than 40% of people think the bill is too liberal. Less than 40%. Not even close to a majority. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_12/027264.php