[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Oct 6 2009, 11:12 AM, said:

so if they do win one or both houses (w/out any noticiable changes in rhetoric or agenda), does that mean they are no longer marginalized? or would it mean they never were?

It would mean it is time to try out the hospitality of Brazil or the like.

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Oct 6 2009, 04:50 PM, said:

kenberg, on Oct 6 2009, 02:48 PM, said:

Yes I know that it is more complicated than that. But.

it probably is, but i don't know why it should be... before any such action is undertaken, lay out the goals and then do whatever is necessary to achieve them, else admit failure and come home

You are somewhat laying out the case made be Bacevich - there is a limit to what military power can accomplish, and it is much less that what is presently believed.

[Winstonm]

jdonn, on Oct 6 2009, 01:09 PM, said:

One thing I find strange is how the general criticism has shifted so quickly from "he is doing too much" to "he is talking too much and not doing enough". I mean people can't have it both ways. With Bush many didn't like that he rushed to judgment on important issues. With Obama many don't like that he takes forever to act on important issues due to considering them so carefuly. I think the only lesson here is you can never win.

I don't think the criticism was ever he was doing too much - unless you count the whacko "Obama is a Marxist" crowd.

The problem is he is disappointing everyone - he is simply another wishy-washy politician who is owned by the lobbyists.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Poll after poll shows that 70% of the population is in favor of the private option.

About the same percentage are against the Afghan war, I understand.

Isn't it time we come to realize that we do not elect representatives of the people any longer - we only get to pick the flavor of vaseline before we are bent over and made to like it.

[MattieShoe]

y66, on Oct 3 2009, 10:35 AM, said:

MattieShoe, on Oct 2 2009, 09:25 PM, said:

A bit of a tangent, but is anybody else tired of the republican/democrat dichotomy thing?  I'm fiscally conservative (what republicans claim to be anyway...) but socially permissive (what democrats claim to be anyway...)

Now I suppose the closest label for that would be libertarian, but because all reasonably moderate voters are subsumed by democrat/republican, those identifying themselves as libertarian are generally much more extreme than me. 

So what do you call somebody like me, fairly moderate with sizable objections to both parties?

I like to call it "sane", but I'm sure some would disagree 

At www.politicalcompass.org they might call you something like (0 +/- 1, -3 +/- 1). See this thread for an entertaining forum discussion of this topic.

Your prediction was spot-on.
-0.25 (moderate), -3.13 (libertarian)

I think I'm a bit more "right" on the economic scale than the test indicates though. Most of the questions had to do with regulating free markets in a black-and-white context. I think of it as something to be avoided if possible, but may be necessary.

[jdonn]

Winstonm, on Oct 6 2009, 06:49 PM, said:

The problem is he is disappointing everyone

That's a fair and balanced criticism. Oh wait, or is it entertainment disguised as news?

[Winstonm]

My mistake.

Obama is disappointing everyone but Josh.

[jdonn]

Actually I am a bit disappointed, and even for the reasons you and others have stated (he moves too slowly on some important issues, and caves too easily IMO). Yet somehow I find it a bit ridiculous to consider a president with a higher approval rating than disapproval rating to be disappointing everyone. It looks like you mean that as synonymous for "disappointing everyone whose opinion matters (especially me) since anyone he doesn't disappoint is a whacko."

Actually that's not fair to say. As I read back it seems clear you meant "disappointing me". Which, I'm sorry to say, will be the case for every president that ever serves again during your lifetime. So like I said, I guess your comment wasn't news.

[Winstonm]

Not really. I simply took the shortcut (by making an incorrect statement) that Obama is disappointing everyone when it is clear he is only disappointing some.

It's like Lukewarm's signature, generalities are a real time saver.

I believe Obama has greatly disappointed the progressives in his party by trying to hard to appease centrists and the right.

My personal disappointment is that he has left too many Bush-era appointments in place and has not pushed harder to restore civil liberties.

With Obama I let my cynical guard down enough to at least hope that at last there might be someone slightly different on the political landscape - so far I feel foolish for having allowed myself that hope.

[Winstonm]

And this is actually my biggest concern over Obama and his presidency.

From Jeff Huber:
(Who is Jeff Huber? Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) commanded an E-2C Hawkeye squadron and was operations officer of a Navy air wing and an aircraft carrier. Jeff's essays have been required reading at the U.S. Naval War College where he earned a master of arts degree in neoconservative studies in 1995. His satires on military and foreign policy affairs appear at Antiwar.com, Aviation Week and Pen and Sword.)

Quote

Mullen, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, has been a leading chanter of the mantra that says we must stay committed in Afghanistan. In a recent Joint Force Quarterly article, Mullen wrote, “The most common questions that I get in Pakistan and Afghanistan are: ‘Will you really stay with us this time?’ ‘Can we really count on you?’ I tell them that we will and that they can.”

In a recent appearance on Al Jazeera, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "both Afghanistan and Pakistan can count on us for the long term."

Every American should be stunned that our top military leadership made these kinds of foreign policy commitments without so much as a by-your-leave from the president or Congress. This is a velvet-fisted version of the kind of military junta we’d expect to see in a banana republic.

The question is who will set foreign policy - the military or the President? The nation was set up to have civilians in charge - Gen. McChrystal et al are challenging that idea.

Really, do you want to put your trust into the guy who brags about sleeping 4 hours a night and eating only one meal a day and has charge over an entire army or the skinny dude who smokes cigarettes outside on the ledge of the oval office?

Those "baby in their teeth" fanatic-types scare me. I wouldn't want McChrystal to live on my block, much lest trust him to do something wise.

[kenberg]

I am not objecting to a president giving a matter some thought. Thinking is good. It is most effective if done early in whatever is undertaken.

Most of what Mr. Obama wishes to have happen, I also wish to have happen (but I don't much care where the Olympics are held and i think Rio has a strong case). Better health care, more people covered, lower cost. All those opposed speak up.

There is an exchange somewhere in Shakespeare that goes someting like this (to put it mildly I am not a scholar)

I was going to quote Shaespeare, but Robert Bruner beat me to it
http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership...-challenge.html

Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.

Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?

[awm]

I'm not disappointed in Obama as president. In fact I think it's ridiculous that people are so quick to judge him one way or another (especially if they are reversing the opinion they held of him prior to his presidency). So far I think he's been an improvement over Bush in a number of ways, but the jury is still out on a lot of his results. In particular:

(1) Obama passed a big economic stimulus package right away. The projection was for the economy to recover sometime in 2010. Will it? And how strong will the recovery be?

(2) Obama has made health care a priority for his administration. Will congress pass anything and what will it look like? I don't agree that "health reform is dead" -- in fact I think it's almost certain the congress passes something. The question is whether they will end up with a big giveaway to insurance companies in exchange for stopping only the worst abuses (which is what came out of the Senate finance committee as far as I'm concerned) or whether they come up with something with more teeth. I haven't been impressed by the debate thus far, but a lot of this is on Congress' shoulders and my expectations there weren't so high anyway. Obama can't pass laws by himself.

(3) Obama talks a good game on climate change, and it's an impressive change from Bush. But we have yet to see whether cap and trade is passed into law. The house bill is weaker than many would like but is still huge progress over the status quo.

(4) Obama is successfully reducing our troop presence in Iraq. We will see how long it takes to get all the troops out, and what happens to the Iraqi regime afterwards.

(5) Afghanistan is a mess, but I still believe it's the right war to be fighting if we're to stop terrorism. We'll see if things improve there, if we capture any big Al Qaeda targets, or if we just get bogged down or pull out without any significant accomplishments. We gave Bush six years to fight the war in Iraq and we went in with much less justification. Let's give Obama a few years in Afghanistan too.

I admit the Olympics thing seemed like a waste of time. But look at it this way -- Bush would've spent the time clearing brush on his ranch in Texas. I don't think we can begrudge Obama an attempt to get the Olympic Games in the USA (and his home town to boot) especially since he met with the Danish leaders on the trip too.

[mike777]

I agree I think there is still time for the current gov to:

1) pass cap and trade/massive changes in carbon taxes
2) massive changes/taxes in health care
3) pull all I mean all troops out of Iraq
4) Give President more years for A....
5) Pass even more for stimulus ..per Krugman....

[hrothgar]

awm, on Oct 7 2009, 05:47 AM, said:

I'm not disappointed in Obama as president. In fact I think it's ridiculous that people are so quick to judge him one way or another (especially if they are reversing the opinion they held of him prior to his presidency). So far I think he's been an improvement over Bush in a number of ways, but the jury is still out on a lot of his results.

I think Adam does a pretty good job on this one.

Years back, Zhou Enlai was asked what he thought about the French Revolution. He famously replied "Its too early to say". It seems ridiculous to be writing epitaphs for the Obama administration or, for that matter, to be celebrating its successes.

When Obama announced his candidacy, I hopped aboard the train. However, I never expected to agree with all, or even most, of his policy decisions. (While Obama was unfairly portrayed as the most liberal of all the Senators, at heart he is very much a centrist and a pragmatist). Now that he's in office, I find myself disagreeing with a number of his policy decision. Such is life...

When I do see Obama deviating from (my own) political orthodoxy, I still find a lot of areas where I'm able to take comfort.

First and foremost, there is the whole question of intensity. There have been a number of cases where Obama has pushed a policy where I go and say "Hmm. You know what, that doesn't make all that much sense. I wonder why he isn't doing X, Y, or Z instead". In contrast, back during the Bush years there were any number of situations in which found myself asking things like "WTF are these idiots doing? They just invaded the wrong country..., They just pissed away any chance of rapprochement with Iran..., they're inflating a massive housing bubble". This is scary for me to say - and I am still probably one of the younger members of this forum - I have pretty clear memories of a whole bunch of Presidencies, dating back to Reagan. I can't remember being particularly happy with any of them. Obama strikes me as the best of the lot.

Next: Obama, might not be getting everything perfect, however, he gets a hell of a lot of credit for not letting the economy melt down 12 months back. The fact that we managed a relatively soft landing buys him one hell of a lot of political capital. I recognize that the economy still isn't all that robust. Life really sucks if you have a job in manufacturing (and I don't see it getting much better) How, these industrial dynamics were established over the course of decades and no one man or one administration is going to be able to overturn them without unleashing something far far worse.

Last: I think that Obama is confronting MANY of the key issues that are facing the US. He's acting on health care, he's acting on trade, he's trying to fix the god awful hole that we dug ourselves into in Iraq and Afghanistan. All this, with the economy hovering as a massive distraction. There are plenty of other things that I like to see him act on - I'd like to see the major investment banks broken up - However, given the current political climate and the fear that things are "moving too fast", I don't see much room for manuever.

[kenberg]

Perhaps Adam's optimistic views will prove right, I hope so. I am not really reversing my views on Obama. I originally thought that I would be voting for McCain, eventually that seemed impossible, I voted for Obama. I was uneasy about it. I have an instinctive mistrust of people who make good speeches, the whole "Yes We Can" thing put my teeth on edge, and so on. I would have been more comfortable if there was more of a "Yes I did" aspect to the campaign.

Rescuing the economy was an accomplishment, the credit is shared by many, the rescue may still fail. Mr. Obama has not (yet) done anything as misguided as invading Iraq, so he is (so far) better than Bush but that is setting a very low threshold for praise.

I suppose there will be some sort of bill that can be called health care reform. I now see it as ominous. No situation is so bad that it cannot be made worse.

[jdonn]

Winston what would you like our military leaders to tell Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we can't be counted on but please cooperate with us anyway? Those statements do not mean the president is not in charge, it's PR pure and simple. You are really taking paranoia to a whole new level now, which is something I never thought I'd say to you.

Try a new exercise. Can you think of some good things you believe Obama has done?

[ArtK78]

kenberg, on Oct 7 2009, 10:38 AM, said:

Mr. Obama has not (yet) done anything as misguided as invading Iraq, so he is (so far) better than Bush but that is setting a very low threshold for praise.

Did you mean to say that to date Mr. Obama is better than Mr. Bush, or that Mr. Obama is so much better than Mr. Bush?

I believe both are accurate.

[kenberg]

I meant that so far he is better, not that he is far better. We can hope for far better, it's too early to tell, I think. He is being tested severely. I don't really want to even guess how it will go.

[Winstonm]

jdonn, on Oct 7 2009, 10:43 AM, said:

Winston what would you like our military leaders to tell Afghanistan and Pakistan, that we can't be counted on but please cooperate with us anyway? Those statements do not mean the president is not in charge, it's PR pure and simple. You are really taking paranoia to a whole new level now, which is something I never thought I'd say to you.

Try a new exercise. Can you think of some good things you believe Obama has done?

Sure, Josh, I can do that and don't mind. I don't think it is enough to say, though, that simply not being Bush constitutes success.

I give him high marks for negotiating with Iran and plainly stating that Iran has the right to a nuclear energy program.

I give him medium marks on at least addressing health care.

That's about the extent of it as far as I am concerned.

Concerning your other point - I think you are naive. MacArthur and Truman were at odds. Kennedy and the CIA were at odds. It is certainly not outlandish to say that McChrystal was overstepping his bounds by doing an infomercial on 60 minutes that offered no opposing views, that he was blatantly insubordinate when he made a speech that condemned Biden's ideas about Iran as basically "stupid"", and that it is truly odd that on the same day that Gates said it was wrong to make your views public (chastising McChrystal) he went on to say in public his own views were that the war was lost without more troops.

Why this need for all this escalation propaganda? Who profits - both politically and financially from the long war?

[jdonn]

McChrystal's behavior is analagous to the overstepping-of-bounds by Serena Williams, Joe Wilson, and Kanye West. It is a reflection on how society has changed in general, not of the power of the military being usurped. It's not propoganda, it's PR. You are still being beyond-paranoid.


I would add some more things Obama has done that I like, and I'm surprised if you don't.

He seems to be the first president in a while who shows he understands the Palastinians in the conflict with Israel have rights.

I thought it was fantastic he fought so hard to bring the olympics here. Why he received so much criticism for that is absolutely beyond me, except to say it mostly came from people whose full time jobs are to criticize him at all costs.

He acted swiftly on the economy, which seems to be making a quick (relatively speaking) turn-around. No I don't agree with everything he did on that, but he did a lot and he rose to the urgency of the situation.

Gitmo is closing. If it takes an extra month or 2 or 6 because they are receiving little cooperation and are taking action carefully that is fine because it is still being done. Only a third of the prisoners that were there before remain.

I am disappointed in some things that I stated before, but with all due respect you are being a debbie downer. He has done a lot of good things in, let's not forget, a very short time and starting from a very bad place.