The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    cmaukonen's picture

    On Obama

    By cmaukonen on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 12:04am |

    I feel I need to make something clear here. I do not dislike Obama at all. He is most likely a very nice person.

    But I do feel he is not a very good president.

    Then again we have had a very long list of lousy to mediocre presidents and I am kind of wondering if maybe that isn't the whole point.

    Comments

    I was for Obama back in 2006 when his name was floated as a possible nominee. I voted for him and promoted him. With the financial melt down waiting for him as he entered office I cut him slack. However, after one year I began to watch him and became frustrated.

    IMO, what keeps Obama at the back of the pack is his insistence on bipartisanship with the GOPer's. Bipartisanship would work only if the political power between both Party's were close to being equal...which it isn't.  As it now stands, all of Obama successes are ripe for the GOPer's to raze by 2012. Where's the bipartisanship? What good came from offering an olive branch to the GOPer's? Health care and financial reforms are filled with partisan sniping and gotchas ripe for exploitation. Neither side was willing to forgo political agendas and look seriously at the problems and develop sound principles both sides could agree on as to what the problems are and how to resolve them. All while Obama sat back and did nothing to steer Congress towards legislation the public wanted, needed and expected. Bu$h had an excuse...he was always on vacation.

    Mediocre is the right word to describe Obama's presidency. I'm sure you're correct, as a person, Obama is quite a likable person. I only wonder if there's something in the pipeline he can't talk about that keeps him from governing with the presidential authority many of us were expecting.


    by Beetlejuice on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 7:45am

    Obama appears to be a nice guy, highly educated, but I'm sorry;  I think he lacks the backbone or the common sense, to carry the yoke he took upon himself, saying he could lead.

    We the People were so anxious, we acted in haste, we should have let him mature more. Giving Obama time to grow and us the time to evaluate his strength.

    He's not a Lincoln, or a Teddy Roosevelt (I wish they had beeen Democrats), he's not an FDR, Maybe he's more like Herbert Hoover during one of the worst economic disasters in America's history.

    Like Hoover, President Obama was unprepared to take the necessary measures to help the unemployed or to help the homeowners.

    Hoover had his Hoovervilles, Obama tells his people take to the streets. What has Obama said,  or better yet DONE,  to help homeowners who are losing everything?

    Can we the commoners, come to the Whitehouse for your next music fest Mr. President?

    Maybe some of my homeless friends could come and eat some cake?

    "Obama condemns killing people on the streets of Tehran but thinks it’s ok to kill kids and the elderly at a funeral in Pakistan."

    I am so tired of the hypocrisy tired of two faced leaders with forked tongues.  


    by Resistance on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 7:53am

    "Obama condemns killing people on the streets of Tehran but thinks it’s ok to kill kids and the elderly at a funeral in Pakistan."

    Where did that quote come from?  Are you seriously going to pass on a clear lie just to reinforce your hatred for President Obama?  There goes your credibility, unless you can prove that statement is true.


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 8:20am

    Your bias is showing and blinding you.

    As to credibility, are you suggesting no innocent persons in Pakistan, are dying from drone attacks? Are you that credulace?

    Is Obama Commander and Chief or doesn’t the buck stop there?

    The point...... Will (your God-like) Obama stop the drone attacks in Pakistan ? ….Will Tehran stop the killing?

    Like I stated earlier hypocrisy is rampant, and describes our leaders.

    Is it  "Do as I say not as I do?"


    by Resistance on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 9:41am

    Oh, please.  Get over this whole Obama-bias nonsense.  You put an inflammatory statement in quotes and presented it as truth.  I asked you where it came from.  If you made it up and put it in quotes, I would like to know why. 

    This is what you wrote:

    "Obama condemns killing people on the streets of Tehran but thinks it’s ok to kill kids and the elderly at a funeral in Pakistan."

    Where is your proof that Obama thinks that?  And how is that any different from the kind of thing Glenn Beck presents every night?  My point, Resistance, is that our words matter.  There are plenty of reasons to be angry at Obama and the current government, but when you throw something like that out there, you had better be able to back it up.  Otherwise, nothing you say will be believable.


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 9:50am

    Oh please Ramona, It appears anybody that has an opinion about Obama, contrary to your love  of Obama; must be challenged, you must attack the observers credibility. 

    You put an inflammatory statement in quotes and presented it as truth.

    What is it you find hard to accept? The truth that other citizens don't share your admiration of Obama? 

    You have the quote and you do not like them, then take away the quotes,  for they are only an opinion based upon observations, Unless of course peoples observations are no longer acceptable? 

    Instead of addressing the apparent hypocrisy of our Government leaders,......you keep questioning my credibility as regards what? That I do not fawn over Obama as you do?

    So ! 

    You want to question my credibility, that I am not a supporter of Obama? 

    Let me question your credulity 

    Does Obama condemn Tehran, for going after those perceived as enemies of the post Shah Government and do you excuse this same conduct when the US does the same thing? 

    The prior administration had the same logic. We must go to Iraq because Saddam Hussein is killing the Iraqi people; so then we Americans go over there and we kill the Iraqi people......I am not saying whether it is right or wrong, it’s just an observation.  

    It’s bad when Tehran does it, but it’s a righteous act on Obamas part? 

    I suppose you’ll tell me; with Obama as President, God is on our side?

    You tell me Ramona, what is Obama thinking,  I can only ascertain what he is thinking only by his conduct.

    The drones are still flying over villages, filled with children and elderly people, looking for targets of opportunity, Does it appease your conscience to call them collateral damage?

    What is Obama thinking?

    What is Obama thnking when so many are losing their homes,

    Is he thinking; "what can I do, I am only the President of the most powerful country in the world" 

    Is  he thinking as Gaddaffi does, "the people love me"  


    by Resistance on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 4:58pm

    All that and you still didn't answer my question.  Was that a quote or did you quote yourself?  And where is the proof that it is true?  All the fussing in the world about what you think Obama is thinking isn't proof that he actually thought it.  But that's what you said.

    It has nothing to do with how I feel about Obama, or how you feel about Obama.  If you're going to make a statement like that, you had better have proof to back it up or someone will question it.  I did, and you are skirting all around it in order not to have to tell me that you have no proof, but you said it anyway.

    BTW, there's no point in asking me what Obama is thinking.  I have no idea, and I don't pretend to.


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 5:14pm

    Reasonable persons can disagree with the conclusions drawn  from the evidence presented.

    BTW  He is judged by his actions and one would hope his thoughts control his actions.

    To illustrate; consider the foreclosure crisis

    It's not easy telling you what he is thinking, but his actions tell me, he's thinking, I'm not a priority.   


    by Resistance on Tue, 03/01/2011 - 6:25pm