Obama Unpopular Because He’s So Awesome
I can't understand how Obama can be so unpopular. He's simply the greatest president EVER. Like you, I thought it was because most people are racist. Not so! Politico tells us because he's so awesome.
The passage of financial reform, just a couple months after the passage of comprehensive health care reform, should decisively end the narrative that President Barack Obama represents a Jimmy Carter-style case of naive hope crushed by the inability to master Washington.
Yet the mystery remains: Having moved swiftly toward achieving the policy objectives he promised voters as a candidate, Obama is still widely perceived as flirting with a failed presidency.
Eric Alterman, in a column in The Nation that drew wide notice, wrote that most liberals think the president is a “big disappointment.” House Democrats were at near-insurrection after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stated the obvious — that the party has a chance of losing the House under Obama’s watch. And independent voters have turned decisively against the man they helped elect 21 months ago — a trend unlikely to be reversed before November.
This is an odd reversal of expectations. When he came into office, the assumption, even among some Democrats, was that he was a dazzling politician and communicator who might prove too unseasoned at governance to win substantive achievements.
The reality is the opposite. You can argue over whether Obama’s achievements are good or bad on the merits. But especially after Thursday’s vote, you can’t argue that Obama is not getting things done. To the contrary, he has, as promised, covered the uninsured, tightened regulations, started to wind down the war in Iraq and shifted focus and resources to Afghanistan, injected more competition into the education system and edged closer to a big energy bill.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39772.htmlYet the mystery remains: Having moved swiftly toward achieving the policy objectives he promised voters as a candidate, Obama is still widely perceived as flirting with a failed presidency.
Eric Alterman, in a column in The Nation that drew wide notice, wrote that most liberals think the president is a “big disappointment.” House Democrats were at near-insurrection after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stated the obvious — that the party has a chance of losing the House under Obama’s watch. And independent voters have turned decisively against the man they helped elect 21 months ago — a trend unlikely to be reversed before November.
This is an odd reversal of expectations. When he came into office, the assumption, even among some Democrats, was that he was a dazzling politician and communicator who might prove too unseasoned at governance to win substantive achievements.
The reality is the opposite. You can argue over whether Obama’s achievements are good or bad on the merits. But especially after Thursday’s vote, you can’t argue that Obama is not getting things done. To the contrary, he has, as promised, covered the uninsured, tightened regulations, started to wind down the war in Iraq and shifted focus and resources to Afghanistan, injected more competition into the education system and edged closer to a big energy bill.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on -
It goes on:
“I tell you, it’s very frustrating that it’s not breaking through, when you look at these things and their scale,” said a top Obama adviser, who spoke on background to offer a candid take on the state of play. “Can you imagine if Bill Clinton had achieved even one of these? Part of it is because we are divided, even on the left…And part of it is the culture of immediate gratification.”
That's right. It's our fault. We aren't racists. We just have a childish need for immediate gratification. I feel so bad for those people in the white house to be ruling such a childish and ungrateful people.
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on
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But to be fair, we are probably being unfair:
The criticism is probably unfair on several fronts. It would be impossible for the best of communicators to offer clarity and convincing words when the country is locked in two wars, wrestling with a once-in-a-lifetime oil spill and mired in high unemployment.
Don't we realize how difficult it is for anyone to rule us in this kind of environment? To quote another great president, it's hard work.
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on
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While we are drowning in debt, what's Obama doing?
Obama is swimming up Niagara until joblessness improves. But, even though Obama doesn’t directly control the economy, he has not been a disciplined or effective communicator about the state of the economy and his prescriptions for it. People will tolerate a weak economy if they feel there is an upward trajectory. But Obama has not managed to instill that confidence.
“The economy is off the charts on what people care about — nothing is a close second,” one of the advisers said.
The unemployment rate is expected to remain near 9.5 percent through the election, which is a big reason that some White House officials are even more pessimistic than Gibbs about the chances of keeping control of the House.
It doesn’t matter that Republicans such as New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg say Obama’s policies helped avert a worse economic calamity than most Americans will ever realize — or that the federal government is turning a profit on some of the investments it made in bailing out companies in 2009.
No politician can escape the gravitational pull of bad employment numbers and economic figures in real time.
Gravitational pull. In real time. That's what it is.
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Permalink Reply by Van on -
I hate to tell you dumbass, he's not talking about why teabaggers aren't grateful. He's talking about criticism from the left that there was no Public Option, no total reversal of Bushs' policies on torture etc, no total ban on offshore drilling, financial reform didn't go far enough and etc, etc.
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on
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That's racist.
During the campaign, he avoided the whole question of whether he is a centrist “new Democrat” or a “traditional liberal” by insisting the debate was irrelevant and uniting the party around Bush hatred and the power of his own biography.
You should be uniting around his biography. The fact that you don't, is racist. If he weren't black, you would be uniting.
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Permalink Reply by Charles Lane on -
No worries Van, I’m sure his hugely expensive cap-and-trade bill and the DOJ’s lawsuit against Arizona’s fantastically popular immigration law will get everything straightened out. And after all, how many seats realistically could the GOP win? Ahem.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/07/van_holle...
Oh my... "The One" is done.
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Permalink Reply by Van on
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I don't worry. Even if you win as big as you think, well life goes on. I've been around long enough to know you win some you lose some. But I think the National Journal is dreaming if they think the repugs will win 70 seats. Congressional Republicans popularity is lower then both Obamas and Congressional Democrats. Also nutty Republican politicians and their wacky ways are giving Democrats plenty of ammunition. If I were The Democratic Party apparatus I would be running adds quoting all the different Republicans and Teapartiers saying they want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. That would take the wind out of their( Republican) sails.
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Permalink Reply by Van on
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Oh and to overturn any of the bills Obama pushed through will require a two thirds majority( to overcome a presidential veto). Aint gonna happen. I predict a mixed victory for Republicans. Win back some of the seats they lost in 2008 and maybe a majority in the house, but there will still be a Dem majority in the senate.
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on
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Oh there's more:
In what would surprise media critics outside Washington, many reporters don’t much like Obama or his gang either. They accurately perceive the contempt with which they are held by his White House, an attitude that undoubtedly flows from the top. Insults and blustery non-responses, f-bombs flying, are common in how West Wing aides speak to reporters.
Note that reporters report what reporters accurately perceive.
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on
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We finish with this:
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) beat his chest to force BP to make public the footage of gushing oil caught by an underwater camera. Democrats celebrated that as a victory for public accountability. But it was actually a painful defeat for Obama. The camera produced an indelible image played 24/7 on cable television that highlighted how ineffectual Obama has been for two months at stopping the catastrophe.
Obama is not responsible for the leak, and, realistically, there was little he could do to expedite the repair. But for an irritable public, the Gulf Coast debacle was a reminder — horribly timed from Obama’s perspective — that Big Business and Big Government are often a problem, not a solution.
It's like rain on your wedding day. I feel so bad for him.
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Permalink Reply by Charles Lane on
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Excellent copy and paste!!! I have taught you well. Your skills are complete. You are an internet jedi cutting with your light sabre and pasting with the power of the farce.
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Permalink Reply by Hillbilly on
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It would be an apt criticism of this thread to say, "Hey you dumb gonad lover, it's easy to say how AWESOME Obama is. Anyone but a racist could do it but he's not unpopular!' Well my little amoureux des gonades, the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Poling has done a poll:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_National_715.pdf
Q8 If the candidates for President next time were Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, who would you vote for?
Sarah Palin ..................................................... 46%
Barack Obama................................................ 46%
Not Sure.......................................................... 9%
And nobody I know would vote for Palin. That's about as unpopular as he can get!
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