Why I Like Obama

[arnie666]

Being from the UK when Barack Obama came on the scene I was initally quite taken with him. I was never a fan of John Mcain, he was too old and too me a plastic conservative. I couldn't see the republican base getting behind such a person.

My mind was further made up in the presidential debates when Obama ran rings around him in my opinion. Mcain came off as old and cranky, he also had the handicap when speaking about the issues of being from the same party as the shaved chimp . Obama I also felt could perhaps heal some of the racial wounds and bring all kinds of people together. As the campaign wore on however I became increasingly concerned.I began thinking are these the best candidates America can put forward to be essentially leader of the world?

Sarah Palin was despite her faults a breath of fresh air , she wasn't cut from the same cloth as the rest, a woman with similar political views as my own, and not afraid to take on her own party. I do think she made a mistake running as Mcains VP , Mcain was a sinking ship from the start and when the economy tanked, well... I also don't think she was ready for a presidential role and is an illustration of the Mcain's poor decision making. But really the media really did show it's disgusting impartial colours over her. She had and perhaps still has a bright future.

But what we have now in Obama ,is a gaffe prone, continuation in many ways of the Bush administration.With added political correctness and limp wristed behaviour you get from the left. i feel sadness towards all the poor blacks in the states that saw such hope in him. I'll be real with you Obama deep down is embarassed by people like you.He has nothing in common with you and wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.Look at how he handled the shootings at Fort Hood... it was so similar to Bush in the kiddie chair on 9/11 it's unreal. I heard many say who is advising Obama about that Press conference when he has to speak to the American people about the worst terrorist attack on a US army base in living memory? To me it is moot anyone unless they were completely thick or just unfeeling would have handled it better. But will the media go for Obama like they did for Bush over being a complete cock? I doubt it.

Yes, hope and change......

[hippifried]

First of all, let's clear up Sarah Palin. Politically, she's done. She has support from some factions of the tea baggers, on ideology alone, but that's it. There was no unprovoked attack on her by the media. She wasn't knowlegable about how the federal government actually works & she was politically naive. The media just put a spotlight on her. That's their job. There's only 2 people in the United States who are elected nationally. She was running for the #2 spot. She's not coming back as anything but a novelty.

Now, "political correctness": I can't for the life of me understand this particular gripe. I can't pinpoint an exact timeline, but I first started hearing this creep into the language back in the '80s. Somehow, people have convinced themselves that being rash & rude is some kind of attribute. Personally, I prefer honest & careful rhetoric over rabble-rousing for the sake of political one-upmanship. For example: What "terrorist" attack at Ft Hood? So far, everything points to a disgruntled employee taking guns to work & shooting the place up. The same thing happened the next day in Orlando. It's a strange phenomenon going on in the US, but it has nothing to do with "terrorism", a term which denotes political motivation & usually conspiracy. There's no evidence of any of that here.What's the difference between this & the Orlando shooting, the day trader a few years back, the guy who shot up the McDonalds, Virginia Tech, or even Columbine? Because he happens to be Muslim? There's no reason for anybody, especially the President, to start jumping to memetic conclusions right out of the gate. The FBI's on it. The military is too incompetent to deal. There's nothing for the President to "handle".

& that brings us back to President Obama. What gaffs? In speech or policy? Of course it's a continuation of the last administration. The government is a continuum. The President isn't a king or a prime minister. He's the chief executive, executing the laws of the land. He can neither make or negate law. He can't overturn an act of Congress or a ruling by the Supreme Court. Expectations don't necessarily follow reality. President Obama walked into a mess. 2 ongoing wars, a huge debt, rising unemployment, recession, & a financial collapse. He never told anybody that things would change overnight. He told everyone that the unemployment numbers would continue to rise for a year or more. He told everyone that the economic stimulous would take 18 to 24 months to see the effects. The TARP was already in place before he took office. He's had to adjust his time projections for different things a few times, but that should have been expected. He's got better information now, & situations are always in flux.

As to his "blackness": He is not part of the black American ex-slave sub-culture. Never was, He did, however, marry into it & has the advantage of not being treated as "white" in his dealings with black people. He grew up in middle class white suburbia, in Hawaii, in the '70s, & attended a racially mixed parochial school. He's racially mixed, & I imagine he has a much broader perspective on racial differences, similarities, & tensions than most people regardless of their race. He's never been directly affected by Jim Crowe. He's the first post baby boom modern era President. As far as I can tell, he's blind to race & religion as factors in human character & competence, & he's doesn't seem to be overly affected by rigid ideology. He's pragmatic. The craziness & red baiting of the cold war & the silliness of race based hatred are foreign concepts to him.

As an American, all I can really expect from my President is that he/she be at least as smart as me, & preferably smarter. I've got that now. President Obama is a bit too conservative for my particular taste, but I can live with conservative. I'm pushing 60, & this is the closest I've seen to a liberal in the Whitehouse. I'm real tired of reactionary. I don't expect radical change. Incremental is fine.

Oh, one more thing. When President Bush heard about the plane crash on 9/11/01, nobody knew it was an attack. The flight patterns that day hadn't been analyzed yet & the second crash hadn't happened. He did the right thing. He didn't panic. He took a couple of minutes to finish what he was doing with the children, who didn't need to be panicked either. Then he devoted his time to finding out what was going on. It's a bogus complaint. Like I said, I'm real tired of reactionay.

[beandip]

Obama.....I like the fact that he's a lying sack of shit.

Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself.


read this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...091125?sp=true


watch this:

[q1a2z3]

First of all, let's clear up Sarah Palin. Politically, she's done. She has support from some factions of the tea baggers, on ideology alone, but that's it. There was no unprovoked attack on her by the media. She wasn't knowlegable about how the federal government actually works & she was politically naive. The media just put a spotlight on her. That's their job. There's only 2 people in the United States who are elected nationally. She was running for the #2 spot. She's not coming back as anything but a novelty.

Now, "political correctness": I can't for the life of me understand this particular gripe. I can't pinpoint an exact timeline, but I first started hearing this creep into the language back in the '80s. Somehow, people have convinced themselves that being rash & rude is some kind of attribute. Personally, I prefer honest & careful rhetoric over rabble-rousing for the sake of political one-upmanship. For example: What "terrorist" attack at Ft Hood? So far, everything points to a disgruntled employee taking guns to work & shooting the place up. The same thing happened the next day in Orlando. It's a strange phenomenon going on in the US, but it has nothing to do with "terrorism", a term which denotes political motivation & usually conspiracy. There's no evidence of any of that here.What's the difference between this & the Orlando shooting, the day trader a few years back, the guy who shot up the McDonalds, Virginia Tech, or even Columbine? Because he happens to be Muslim? There's no reason for anybody, especially the President, to start jumping to memetic conclusions right out of the gate. The FBI's on it. The military is too incompetent to deal. There's nothing for the President to "handle".

& that brings us back to President Obama. What gaffs? In speech or policy? Of course it's a continuation of the last administration. The government is a continuum. The President isn't a king or a prime minister. He's the chief executive, executing the laws of the land. He can neither make or negate law. He can't overturn an act of Congress or a ruling by the Supreme Court. Expectations don't necessarily follow reality. President Obama walked into a mess. 2 ongoing wars, a huge debt, rising unemployment, recession, & a financial collapse. He never told anybody that things would change overnight. He told everyone that the unemployment numbers would continue to rise for a year or more. He told everyone that the economic stimulous would take 18 to 24 months to see the effects. The TARP was already in place before he took office. He's had to adjust his time projections for different things a few times, but that should have been expected. He's got better information now, & situations are always in flux.

As to his "blackness": He is not part of the black American ex-slave sub-culture. Never was, He did, however, marry into it & has the advantage of not being treated as "white" in his dealings with black people. He grew up in middle class white suburbia, in Hawaii, in the '70s, & attended a racially mixed parochial school. He's racially mixed, & I imagine he has a much broader perspective on racial differences, similarities, & tensions than most people regardless of their race. He's never been directly affected by Jim Crowe. He's the first post baby boom modern era President. As far as I can tell, he's blind to race & religion as factors in human character & competence, & he's doesn't seem to be overly affected by rigid ideology. He's pragmatic. The craziness & red baiting of the cold war & the silliness of race based hatred are foreign concepts to him.

As an American, all I can really expect from my President is that he/she be at least as smart as me, & preferably smarter. I've got that now. President Obama is a bit too conservative for my particular taste, but I can live with conservative. I'm pushing 60, & this is the closest I've seen to a liberal in the Whitehouse. I'm real tired of reactionary. I don't expect radical change. Incremental is fine.

Oh, one more thing. When President Bush heard about the plane crash on 9/11/01, nobody knew it was an attack. The flight patterns that day hadn't been analyzed yet & the second crash hadn't happened. He did the right thing. He didn't panic. He took a couple of minutes to finish what he was doing with the children, who didn't need to be panicked either. Then he devoted his time to finding out what was going on. It's a bogus complaint. Like I said, I'm real tired of reactionay.

Dude!
You are the tea bagging expert!

[pantybulge69]

amen my friend, you have nailed it squarely on the head

Comparing Obama with Karl Marx shows pretty much how ignorant and uninformed many Americans are.

...and far too easily manipulated

The best example is the health care debate. 40 million Americans cannot afford a health insurance

and even those that can are often denied coverage when it comes time to collect on a claim. Over 100 Americans are dying every single day because of this and it's a downright rotten lowdown dirty shame.
And you also couldn't be more right on about...

George Bush fucked you up and Obama has to clean the shit now.

....and he's being stymied every step of the way by the right wing in Congress which is totally in the pocket of the pharmaceutical/insurance machine. These tea bagger protests and rallies are not the grass roots uprisings of the common man that they would have us believe but are in fact organized and funded by tools of the drug/insurance cartel such as Americans for Prosperity, whose sole purpose is to scare the shit out of everyone w/ talk of death panels and comparing our President to Hitler and even Pol Pot fer crissakes. Most of these clowns pissing and moaning about "I want my America back" aren't worried about health care anyway...the're just pissed because there's a Black Guy in the White House.

...and it´s hard for him to make the "change" happen due to Republican sabotage, obstruction and conservative media propaganda.

yep...Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh are the Devil incarnate. If a properly informed electorate is the cornerstone of an effective democracy, we've definitely got an uphill battle on our hands. Hopefully, with reporters like Rachel Maddow telling it like it really is, sanity will prevail.

btw...was lucky enough to visit Austria back in '85 and fell in love w/ the place...esp. Wien. Hope to be able to return someday, if I can stay away from Amsterdam

+1 .........

[q1a2z3]

amen my friend, you have nailed it squarely on the head

Comparing Obama with Karl Marx shows pretty much how ignorant and uninformed many Americans are.

...and far too easily manipulated

The best example is the health care debate. 40 million Americans cannot afford a health insurance

and even those that can are often denied coverage when it comes time to collect on a claim. Over 100 Americans are dying every single day because of this and it's a downright rotten lowdown dirty shame.
And you also couldn't be more right on about...

George Bush fucked you up and Obama has to clean the shit now.

....and he's being stymied every step of the way by the right wing in Congress which is totally in the pocket of the pharmaceutical/insurance machine. These tea bagger protests and rallies are not the grass roots uprisings of the common man that they would have us believe but are in fact organized and funded by tools of the drug/insurance cartel such as Americans for Prosperity, whose sole purpose is to scare the shit out of everyone w/ talk of death panels and comparing our President to Hitler and even Pol Pot fer crissakes. Most of these clowns pissing and moaning about "I want my America back" aren't worried about health care anyway...the're just pissed because there's a Black Guy in the White House.

...and it´s hard for him to make the "change" happen due to Republican sabotage, obstruction and conservative media propaganda.

yep...Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh are the Devil incarnate. If a properly informed electorate is the cornerstone of an effective democracy, we've definitely got an uphill battle on our hands. Hopefully, with reporters like Rachel Maddow telling it like it really is, sanity will prevail.

btw...was lucky enough to visit Austria back in '85 and fell in love w/ the place...esp. Wien. Hope to be able to return someday, if I can stay away from Amsterdam

+1 .........

There as always been a "black guy" in the White House. There has never been anything wrong with that. All conservatives are concerned about is that the janitors, butlers, bathroom attendants, and kitchen help were infinity more competent to be President than obama. Race is not an issue it's whether someone is a MOONBAT!!! obama is a MOONBAT.

He may be clean and articulate (with a teleprompter) but he is not presidential material.

[buckjohnson]

Obama is smart, jive, and cool like dat.. That is why I like him and respect him.

[Amsterdamage]

yeah me too. coz it's not like he is in charge of anything at all what so sever. but he has a cool factor like that other shill had, Billyboy Clinton

[traLika]

Thank fuck 'Dubyer' isn't in charge any more!

[Ben]

Someone asked Obama about people who hate him... "Comes with the job..." (or something like that)

While I don't agree with alot of his politics I do appreciate his straight forward talking. Can't help but like the guy. (Even if you do think he is the second coming of Karl Marx.)

Obama is the furthest thing from actual socialism. (Actual socialism is about the workers controlling the means of production. Socialism is antithetical to state power, to centralized power.) Well, maybe socialism for the super-rich... and capitalism for the rest. Gore Vidal pointed out: it's socialism for the super-rich and free enterprise for everyone else.
Glenn Greenwald excoriates the Obama presidency: "How can an administration represented by Tim Geithner and Larry Summers -- and which specializes in an endless stream of secret deals with corporate lobbyists and sustains itself with Wall Street funding -- possibly maintain any pretense of populist support or changing how Washington works? It can't."