Why has Obama failed so hard?

[african1]

Never before, not EVER, in the entire history of american government, has a governing administration consist of so few members who have ever worked in the private sector, i.e. have ever worked a real normal job in their life. I kinda think that's also one of the reasons why this administration has failed dontcha think?

What makes you think this Administration has failed. It did not. Besides it has two more years to go. The last Congress was one of the most productive in American History since the times of FDR. A lot of things got passed, but success doesn't draw publicity. Few failures do because it is good business to talk about political bickering. And when the radical conservative media has huge microphones to distort the truth, all the bills that got passed got forgotten real quick.

[african1]

What an odd thing to say...

Finally, amidst all this talk of "failure" I'd love for one person, just one, to point out specifically how the Obama Administration has "failed." In less than two years, with a outright hostile opposition party, it looks to me like the administration has actually been relatively successful. Passed ACA, passed Dodd-Frank, passed ARRA, passed a middle-class tax cut tax, negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with the Russkies, re-engaged with NATO, etc....

Here are some more accomplishments:

http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=51594

[yodajazz]

Never before, not EVER, in the entire history of american government, has a governing administration consist of so few members who have ever worked in the private sector, i.e. have ever worked a real normal job in their life. I kinda think that's also one of the reasons why this administration has failed dontcha think?

I argue the opposite; that its a good thing about government people, not working in the private sector. There is a conflict problem, with government officials going to work for industries they were overseeing, or vice versa. Probably the best known of many examples is Vice President, Dick Cheney who was an instrumental supporter of the attack on Iraq. The company, who he was a former head of, got multi-million dollars of contracts from the Iraq war. They were even able to sell oil to, the oil rich, Iraqis.

In a recent thread, I cited the case of Martha Graham, the wife of Republican Senator, Phil Graham, who left the head the government Futures and Commodities Comission to go the board of Enron. Enron got an exemption to government oversight, right after she left, the govvernment to join them. They went on to make well over 100 billion from cornering the California energy market, before collapsing.

Ex-Generals, working for weapons makers, and also giving information to the public on television, as ,experts', has been called into question. But even more questionable is the general involvment in selling their ex-employers, the government, new weapon systems from their new employers.

If you are ever bored look up information on the Becthel Corp. You find loads of top government officials, including a Republican ex-secretary of Defense, and an ex-CIA director. They got 680 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts. Even the Bin Laden family, has investments in an equity fund run by the Becthel family.
Bechtel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Bechtel_logo.png" class="image"><img alt="Bechtel logo.png" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6f/Bechtel_logo.png/200px-Bechtel_logo.png"@@AMEPARAM@@en/thumb/6/6f/Bechtel_logo.png/200px-Bechtel_logo.png
One critical article has this to say about them:
Bechtel’s close relationship with the CIA helped influence overthrows of several foreign governments perceived as unfriendly to American business goals; and allowed the company to be at the right place at the right time to take advantage of new business opportunities with puppet regimes.
http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/.../bechtel2.html
(Coincidently, a couple of those were in Muslim nations, these happened in the 1950's. We don't have seem many problems with Muslim nations who are friendly to US business interests, i.e Saudia Arabia, where Becthel has had major building projects.)

So I am saying that government officials, having lots of private sector experience, is not always in the best interest of the general public.

[Amsterdamage]

Show me any politician, antwhere on this planet, who's ever had a real job.

Is this a serious question? Because if i'd answer that, it would fill up the whole page.
The fact that this administration has the smallest number of members EVER who've had a real job, in the entire history of America, automatically means that all the previous administrations have had more wouldnt u think?
Do your own research and then do the math please

@yoda:
I'm not saying they need lots of experience, and yes i agree that conflicts of interest can rise as soon as someone moves from a higher management level in a company into a political position, we've been able to witness the scams around that plenty of times. BUT that's controllable, you can eliminate that conflict by being careful with where you get the person and where you put him.

My concern is that a politician who hasn't had any real work experience is completely out of touch with reality and has no idea how things work in the common world. And most likely he/she doesn't care either. Yet the way they talk (i personally love Vivek Kundra's speeches, he's one of the worst) as if they've had loads of experience in all sorts of fields and know what's going on. Not in any particular words, but because of the way they speek, that is what the public assumes and therefore believes. Very dangerous and misleading.

[hippifried]

The fact that this administration has the smallest number of members EVER who've had a real job, in the entire history of America, automatically means that all the previous administrations have had more wouldnt u think?
Do your own research and then do the math please

Hey, I've got a calculator & acomputer. Give me some numbers to crunch. Personally, I think this is just another of those statements you like to pull out of your ass. I have no intention of researching the resumes of hundreds of staff personnel who all came from somewhere & hadn't been working in the Whitehouse prior to 2009. Maybe they were working the oil fields of Haiti.

[Amsterdamage]

I have no intention of researching the resumes of hundreds of staff personnel who all came from somewhere & hadn't been working in the Whitehouse prior to 2009.

Then don't bring it up!!!

Hey, I've got a calculator & acomputer. Give me some numbers to crunch. Personally, I think this is just another of those statements you like to pull out of your ass.

although i often don't agree with you, i did use to consider you a pretty serious and respectable contributor to subjects like these, at least someone with some sanity compared to most others here. but now u're just plainly telling me i'm pulling statements out of my ass? and next u refuse to do your own research? see, that's the whole problem with people adding themselves to a discussion about these subjects. most of you act as if you know exactly what's going on, yet you refuse to do your own freakin research.
this is precisely what i refer to in my other post: you read/hear something here n there, and then take it for the absolute truth, without thinking any further.

if you decide to participate in discussions about subjects like these, i expect you to have your facts straight in stead of just 'debunking' something i say without really debunking it but still have the nerve to ask ME to prove my point. no, if you disagree with my point, YOU first prove why i'm wrong, and then we'll go from there. if you're too lazy to go that way, it's maybe better not to participate in these discussions at all.

Maybe they were working the oil fields of Haiti.

ha, cute

[yodajazz]

Is this a serious question? Because if i'd answer that, it would fill up the whole page.
The fact that this administration has the smallest number of members EVER who've had a real job, in the entire history of America, automatically means that all the previous administrations have had more wouldnt u think?
Do your own research and then do the math please

@yoda:
I'm not saying they need lots of experience, and yes i agree that conflicts of interest can rise as soon as someone moves from a higher management level in a company into a political position, we've been able to witness the scams around that plenty of times. BUT that's controllable, you can eliminate that conflict by being careful with where you get the person and where you put him.

My concern is that a politician who hasn't had any real work experience is completely out of touch with reality and has no idea how things work in the common world. And most likely he/she doesn't care either. Yet the way they talk (i personally love Vivek Kundra's speeches, he's one of the worst) as if they've had loads of experience in all sorts of fields and know what's going on. Not in any particular words, but because of the way they speek, that is what the public assumes and therefore believes. Very dangerous and misleading.

I worked a government job of family services. We dealt directly with families at risk and thier issues. It might not be considered a 'real job', to some people, but for those families, it was sometimes life and death, or just basic survival issues. Obama worked on a community level directly with families. Their world is real too, unlike what some may have you to believe. So who is really separated from reality, when you are the head of some major corporation making a million dollar salary? It's more likely that a poorer people know other struggling to get by without healthcare, for example. I see the concept of of 'real job', being used by some to mean that poorer people, are not significant. I have seen it thrown about that they are just drains on society, etc. Politicians are more likely to care about the general good. One man, one vote, is really an equalizer in the political process.

But anyway, those who have lives in politics are bombarded by requests from everyone, the poor, to business and the most wealthy about their needs. It's false to believe that someone in office is out of touch with reality. Sometime they are privy to information that the general public does not know. Its just coming to light that the financial bailout was really about saving the collapse fo the credit card industry. It appeared that they were just helping the wealthy, but the collapse of a major portion of the credit card industry, would have effected many in the general public, if not everyone. So I say that Obama has no real job experience is false, just becuase he has not been owned by a major corporation.

[hippifried]

Amsterdamage,

I'm not participating in the general discussion in this thread because the question in the poll is bogus. But you made a claim, off topic enough to catch my attention, that you have yet to show any evidence for. It's not the first time. There's nothing for me to research because it's not my claim to prove, & to tell the truth, this just sounds like a talking point from the Republican party or some radio monolog shrieker. At least give me a source. This "inexperience" mantra was a major part of the 2008 Republican campaign.

The reality is that the government isn't a business & can't be run as one. There's nothing that prepares anybody for working in the Whitehouse, at any level, except working there. Being President of the United States of America is unlike any other job that anyone could ever have.

[Amsterdamage]

The reality is that the government isn't a business & can't be run as one.

Now there u have a good point. And i totally agree with u. Unfortunately, it IS (or at least being tried to be) run as a business. And it is big business. And that's where and why it goes wrong.
By the way this counts for any government...republican, democrat, tree huggers, whatever. Hey i'm not even American, i just spot the scams and hate on them so i don't know where u get the idea from that i have a 'Republican' standpoint. But maybe i do on some subjects and don't on others. For instance i consider Bush and Clinton as equally evil people. Hell they even share a bank account!
Nah I don't really identify myself with a particular political colour or preference (although i do believe that someone like Ron Paul would make a great president, because he seems the most honest and down to earth of the whole bunch).
To me it's just a label, and to be honest i believe that the reps and dems have the same agenda in the end anyway, the only 'struggle' they're dealing with is who gets the best seats.

But seriously, i would love to start a drinking club or something with u guys for topics like these because i simply don't have the time (or priority, or energy) to type everything i'd like to say in response to these subjects on a place like a forum. There's simply too much to talk about and too much to explain/backup if you want to prove every statement u make.

Enough about me, let's get back to the initial post: I believe the poor fucker (Obama) was meant to fail to begin with. I like the guy, what's there not to like about him? I wouldn't even care if he turns out to be an in Kenya born practising muslim with a gay-curious history and a wife who walks over him. I don't believe that particularly affects anyone's ability or good intentions to run a country. But he's not a president. He's not a boss. He's a (great) marketing machine, a salesman, a host, an entertainer, a puppet, a shill. I don't believe he has any real power. Yes he lied, of course he lied, he's the frikkin president. Plus he doesn't always have a choice. He wants to do something, announces it, and then does the opposite because someone with more power (CIA, big pharma, JP Morgan, the high speed rail lobby, etc) tells him to, and then people get angry because he had 'lied' about it.

Oh and African, i respect your opinions too and sometimes we even agree, but i gotta say, i see quite a few bogus 'accomplishments' in that list, sorry!

[onmyknees]

There's been some interesting, insightful things said here regardless of weather I concur. Historians will spend decades trying to figure out where it all went so wrong for Obama. One can make this as complicated as one chooses, but Carvelle had it right on 2 separate instances. "It's the economy Stupid" . The fact of the matter is if the economy was chugging along and unemployment was 4-5% chances are Americans wouldn't be nearly so critical of the liberal agenda. A man without a job is a dangerous animal, and in the proceeding 2 years, Obama has showed little ability to feel one's pain, and impotent to do anything about it. He pissed away a year on health care while millions of Americans lost their jobs. The fact that they became unemployed may not be his fault, but it sure the hell is his problem! His polices have yet to show any tangible results. Period. He is extremely unpopular with businesses big and small. That's not my opinion...but rather a fact.
The second nail that Carvelle hit squarely on the head was his frustrated rant about the oil spill. Remember this.."you got to do something man, we're dying down here". Again in a crisis Obama appeared detached and aloof. It was weeks before he even issued a statement about the crisis. Save all the articles and research you will no doubt try to counter that with...perception is reality. And he was perceived as detached and powerless and almost disinterested. It's hard to stop a bullet once it's left the muzzle, and it's hard to change the perception once it's out there. Much of the criticism is probably well deserved, but not all of it. I remember when the shit started piling on Bush and he seemed powerless to combat it, and the media moved in for the final kill rendering him damn near incapable of anything.....well my progressive friends, in politics...turnabout is fair play. I feel your pain because I've too experienced it. Suck it up and deal with it and stop seeking scapegoats .