Your Uncle Dave’s often wondered if the Republicans threw the election by rigging voting machines (circumstantial, but been shown just too easy to do for a reason) and by nominating a doddering old fool for Prez (watch some of his speeches since then and say I’m wrong) and a wacko for VP because they knew they had screwed the economy and whoever was in the White House would be unable to fix it. And the Dems made sure it couldn’t be fixed by getting elected a first-rate speech reader and… well, that’s about it. And we fell for it all. Read the whole commentary for a no holds barred analysis of failure.
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. […] In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety.
[…]
In contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.
He missed his opportunities and has too often went with his head, and not enough gut. He should have pulled the plug on those wars earlier. It isn’t going to get any easier and it will be messy no matter what. Just look at Vietnam and Korea.
Right now he’s loser because he’s trying to appease everyone by being a moderate Republican.
Dvorak is right. He was elected on jobs and the wars. He’s been tentative on both. Like Clinton, he became obsessed with health care and appeasing Wall Street and has used up all his political capital on that.
The only thing going in Obama’s favour right now is that the Republicans are doing far more damage to themselves because they are a bunch whiny, smug pricks.
Have fun with this election you poor bastards. You deserve better.
“What went wrong with Obama?” Answer: Nothing, people expected something different from a politician. What they got was, a politician. The only upside on the horizon is that the T party pretty much, contrary to alfphie, blew off any shot they had. When the elections roll around they will find themselves on the outside looking in. In one way because that acted stupidly, on the other the average voter is going to vote them out for someone who tells them what they want to hear.
With respect to the article, it was clearly written by someone that has not read their history.
That is what we call a false dichotomy. He makes it sound like the government *chose* to not “create” jobs (as if it can create jobs in the long run). FDR spent eight years in the White House spending like a drunken sailor and yes even directly giving people jobs mopping floors and our unemployment was still higher then than it is now. Only by drafting every able bodied person he could find due to a total war were we able to pull out of the depression. Barry doesn’t have that choice.
Does anyone here doubt that statement? Anyone? The core issue, as always, is in the implementation. *How* exactly do we go about “putting Americans back to work.”? Road work isn’t it. Saving 30K/yr teacher jobs for six months (at a cost of four times that) isn’t it.
Ding! Ding! Ding!. We have a winner.
Indeed, the President’s stories are always lacking something but a villain isn’t it. Credibility is the the element lacking in all his stories. No one believes he’ll do what he says he’ll do or they believe he doesn’t know what he’s talking about so he doesn’t know what he’s promising.
In addition, article claims that somehow we did not care about deficits during the Bush years. What absurdity! Many people complained about the deficit; both Republicans and Democrats were screaming at the Medicare Drug bill. Bush’s approach was to rubber stamp anything Congress did as long as they helped him fight the war on “terror”. So Congress, having Daddy’s checkbook, threw a couple of keggers and here we are. Thanks to both parties.
In the end, the shame is that the first black President, a remarkable achievement in our history, is this guy. My hope is that black Americans (indeed people of any race) are not dissuaded by Barry’s abject failure as a President but will instead be encouraged by his election victory and to prove that they can be better than any President regardless of race and that Obama was just an aberration.
# 46 Dvorak said, “And nothing is accomplished.”
Oh, I think one thing has been accomplished. The Nobel Peace Prize has been shown to be a farce. Have they lost ALL credibility?
It was the Republicans that did this to us. It was the Democrats who ignored the problems and lied to us.
Who do we trust? The people that started this mess or the people who are continuing the mess?
Are there other choices? WTF?
Read “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Obama is the Warren Harding of the 21st century. We all voted for the man who looked and sounded exactly like what a President should look and sound like. We got caught up with the style and now we know the substance was worse than nothing.
# 66 foobar said:
“Dvorak is right. He was elected on jobs and the wars. He’s been tentative on both.”
Not in Libya.
For which, he should be impeached.
And I won’t be voting for anyone who could have but did not introduce or support the necessary articles of impeachment.
Thanks for this post. Now we can see the political frenzies of each poster. Me? I am right wing. I never hide it. Others here are a bit cagey.
Social Security? I better get mine in a couple of years, or something bad will happen.
Obamacare? I give a shit. Medicare better still be there since I have been paying for it for years, same as Social Security.
Welfare? Fuck them. Make them work for money, like everyone else. There are streets that need cleaning, graffiti that needs removing, homeless that need cleaning. Can’t work? Get a family to care for you in exchange for something!
Taxes? FLAT TAX! Jeez! How simple is that? OR, national sales tax instead of Income tax.
There are solutions, but they would mean politicians would not get re elected.
#76 Nice description of a moderate Republican. You finally got something right.
#77 He’s not tentative on Libya? I agree that the US shouldn’t be in there but I have no clue what the current US policy is.
#78, faxon
Obamacare? I give a shit. Medicare better still be there since I have been paying for it for years, same as Social Security.
We can see the entire mind set of the Tea Baggers summed up here. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME fuck you, ME ME ME ME ME ME ME, fuck you, ME ME ME ME ….
The selfish Tea Baggers are more concerned about themselves than they are America.
#54 and anyone else who feels as they do…
Social Security and Medicare are NOT entitlements. We have paid for them with specifically earmarked deductions from every paycheck we’ve ever earned. It’s just like an insurance premium or paying into a retirement account.
Take a look at the population of this country and think long and hard before you talk about doing away with them… It’s not just political suicide to try that, it may well spark a real uprising.
#78 “There are solutions, but they would mean politicians would not get re elected.”
That is why Obama was inflexible on having the debit plan addressed again prior to the next election. Screw the debt I want to get reelected.
taken directly from http://ssa.gov/history/court.html
“The Committee on Economic Security (CES) struggled with this and was unsure whether to claim the commerce clause or the broad power to levy taxes and expend funds to “provide for the general welfare,” as the basis for the programs in the Act. Ultimately, the CES opted for the taxing power as the basis for the new program, and the Congress agreed”
The Social Security System has never been claimed to be anything other than a simple tax and transfer program, which is exactly why it was not declared unconstitutional by the supreme Court as it was voiding other New Deal era programs. If the government had decided to call it an insurance program to the courts, it would have been thrown out, and they knew it.
I still can’t believe that after paying for eleven straight years of foreign wars and invasions, we can’t afford decent health care or public transportation.
We can shelter and feed our troops but not our citizens that lose their jobs through no fault of their own. We’ve done nothing to increase the quality of life for our homeless in the past 200 years.
Our children are left to grow into adults with no health care, no sidewalks or public transportation to get to and from jobs and minimum wage. Then we’ll chastise and berate them for being poor while we clear the streets for the new Hummers, limousines and BMWs..
Does anyone really believe in an American dream anymore? Anyone?
We’re doing illegal immigrants a favor by deporting them to countries with lower unemployment rates and better chances of living longer.
I love my country for it’s freedom of speech. I despise that the freedom has let idiots rule.
From the link in #85
The old-age insurance system introduced in the Social Security Act was designed, at a public policy level, to be a contributory social insurance program in which contributions were made by workers to what was called the “old age reserve account,” with the clear idea that this account would then be the source of monies to fund the workers’ retirement. Actuarial studies were done to determine what the contribution rate would need to be in order to have sufficient reserves in the account to pay anticipated benefits. In the popular understanding of the program, the contributions established an “earned right” to the eventual benefits. President Roosevelt strenuously objected to any attempt to introduce general revenue funding into the program. His famous quote on the importance of the payroll taxes was: “We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”
One damn politician underestimating other damn politicians.
#86 “I still can’t believe …… ”
You still can’t believe the country is not like you think it should be.
“We can shelter and feed our troops but not our citizens that lose their jobs through no fault of their own.”
The troops are employees of the government. What is the matter with unemployment insurance for those that loose their job? You want us to shelter and feed them too?
Not everyone in this balkanized country wants it to be a social democracy.
“We’re doing illegal immigrants a favor by deporting them to countries with lower unemployment rates and better chances of living longer.”
I agree and we should keep doing it.
The failure of leadership on the Dem side doesn’t end with Pres. Obama. Harry Reid, for example, is so lacking in charismatic persona as to be a virtual ghost outside the DC beltway. When was the last time (if ever) that you felt confidence after listening to Reid speak? The Dems NEED a better leader.
Wow, we are really turning into the Roman Empire.
http://tinyurl.com/3w77hjw
Because Congress can’t get is poo poo in one sock, I guess it’s ok for the President to declare himself dictator.
#87, haha, and too bad for poor Roosevelt, the Supreme Court made it quite clear in Flemming vs. Nestor that there is no such thing as an “earned right” to Social Security payments. The Congress can tax as it wishes, spend as it wishes, and can alter either of the two at any time.
I feel no sorrow for any of you naive little wretches.
I told you before it all happened that no matter who of the plutocrats you voted for nothing would change.
Until you all finally admit that we need a new form of government and constitution and will roll up your sleeves and make it happen, you get what you deserve.
Kiss my ass you winning, cringing, sycophants.
Cursor_
#92- That’s just because Roosevelt wasn’t allowed to appoint his 6 additional justices.
If he had managed to do that, today’s Supreme Court might be larger than congress.
Dallas, what do you mean Obama has saved 100,000 jobs? Look at the unemployment report. Without Obama as President, clearly there would be no jobs, and he has saved 50 million jobs.
The LA Times got it right.
Geithner agrees to stay at Treasury, continue Obama’s amazing economic policies – latimes.com
http://tinyurl.com/3vduzou
This reminds me of the NBA playoffs from two years ago. The Celtics managed a comeback to dispatch Cleveland and Lebron James in the second round(remember ‘I’m LeBron’), then faced Orlando in the next round, and Charles Barkley picked the magic to win. During the halftime show of game one, he started talking about how poorly Orlando was playing, not doing x,y, and z. Kenny Smith responded, it’s the first half of the first game, and you’re already backtracking!
Does anyone here really want our trade deficit, budget deficit, and other fiscal issues solved? Really? Are you willing to give up your $1000/child tax credits, mortgage interest deductions, low taxed gasoline, social security payments to those who haven’t worked 40 or more years….
Oh, you expect to find more of the fabled rich people? Add in the government liabilities on the federal, state, and local levels. Now try to find 50 to 100,000 billionaires to confiscate all their wealth. You can’t? Then cut spending AND raise the taxes on things we don’t need more of. We don’t need more gas consumption, population growth, mortgage debt. Now vote for that politician with the courage to tell you this.
“You know there are no quick fixes to this problem. You know we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” he told an audience at the University of Miami, noting instability in the Middle East and rising demand in China were boosting the oil market.
“If we’re going to avoid being at the mercy of these world events, we’ve got to have a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy. Yes, oil and gas, but also wind and solar and nuclear and biofuels,” he said to applause.
Ha , you guys should come live in South Africa , I dont understand American politics , actually I dont understand any of it , But if you want we can always send our monkey of a president , Zuma and take Obama any day , ha ha then you’ll really have to bend. in our country The tax payer is raped for everything , they are even charging us to drive on the roads nowadays . And Zuma and his fat cats get richer and richer , while people are straving and dying .
Healthcare ha , what healthcare there is now here , transportion ? our transportion called ” taxis ” large minibuses usually crammed full , who where shooting at the police ( just the other day ) . But welcome to Africa 🙂 now you have Obama . he he he , they could one day call America , Africa’s second cousin , But Im not racist at all , its just how it is , Take take take … good luck