If he really knew what he was doing . . .

[grantcart]

The stimulus package would start to show signs of impact, the stock market would be up 30%, the liquidity crises would be receding and the general implosion of the world financial system would have been averted, he would have announced and started the closing of Gitmo, our troops would be out of routine patrols in Iraq, car manufacturing would be up, he would have broken through new barriers in appointing a new supreme court justice, he would have announced America's intention to negotiate an end to strategic nuclear stockpiles and 6 months into the administration he would have changed the entire tone of international relations opening up more discussion and less confrontation with our friends and allies.


But we are now approaching the 7th month of the Obama Presidency and the President (who is either not smart enough or not tough enough depending on your predilection) has not achieved any one of . . . .


Oops my bad.

[NanceGreggs]

1. Love it!

:kick: & REC'D!

[grantcart]

3. and a timely unrec has wiped you out lol glad to see you back in top form

[Number23]

37. With my meager little rec it's up to 84 now! But the "recovery my ass!"-ers will be along shortly

I tell ya, when members of this site sound just like Republicans in denying the first little taste of recovery that we are seeing and DESPERATELY need to see much more of, something is tragically wrong.

EarlG summed it up best in this week's Top Ten. Entry #5 sounds like a shockingly large number of DUers lately. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x470355

[lsewpershad]

71. Me too

Add my voice. There is a lot more to come.

[derby378]

2. However...

...Gitmo's still open, those responsible for torture have not been brought to justice, unemployment is still up, unions are suffering, health care reform is in jeopardy from Big Insurance and its hired lackeys, and we're still in Iraq.

We haven't even begun to find the path out of the woods yet.

[grantcart]

4. exactly now do you fall into the "not courageous enough" or "not smart enough" camp?

edited to correct syntax.

[Hutzpa]

18. Thats why I like you

dude....:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

6. zomg. Things are not yet finished? srsly?

:rofl:

[George II]

74. When his objectives weren't achieved by January 21, I gave up on him!!!

[TankLV]

60. Thank you for bringing a dose of REALITY to the discussion...

Single Payer is NOT EVEN IN THE ROOM, let alone "on the table", bush* Spying and Secrets are STILL BEING DEFENDED, and many other CRITICAL pieces of "reform" are not even being considered...

[vaberella]

5. Loved it too and rec'd. Ugh...like he's done nothing. n/t

[scheming daemons]

7. Add a few more well-written paragraphs, and you'd be another Nance Greggs....

;-)

[grantcart]

8. Not even close

[cliffordu]

23. Are you grantcart's mom???

:rofl:

[zipplewrath]

9. 7 months ago

Would you have written this set of goals 7 months ago? Or would it have read more like this.

Bank regulation instituted.
Mortgages reorganized with cram downs completed.
Card Check passed.
Troops below 100,000 in Iraq.
Charges beginning to be brought from torture investigations.
Single Payer out of Senate committee
Gitmo closed down.
DADT suspended......

[grantcart]

10. It would depend to a degree on the extent that Congress was willing to

stand up and fight and the degree that it was going to leave everything for the President to do.


I would have found it difficult to believe, 7 months ago, that the Democratic leadership in Congress would not even support the removal of Gitmo detainees into the US.


Nevertheless, given the place we were and the place we are now in, and the abissmal record of Congress, I am very pleased with what the President has accomplished in 7 months. Had Congress done its job atleast the House would have passed the Health Care bill and we would be in the 9th inning of that struggle and not in the 5th.


Obviously you are shattered by his betrayal of the progressive agenda.


I sense that you are in the "doesn't have enough courage camp" and not the "he isn't smart enough" camp. Is that right?

[zipplewrath]

11. Inexperienced

I'm not sure which camp I'm in, but my perception is that he still doesn't really have a grasp of the job and is behaving like a rookie.

[grantcart]

12. we will put you in the "not smart enough" camp for now

if he gets more experience and you want to change to the "not courageous enough" then we can switch later.


Thanks for playing.

[zipplewrath]

14. when did this "camp" stuff start

You guys forming up teams or something?

[grantcart]

19. 12:38 this afternoon PDT

There are a few million people that thought that he wasn't smart enough or courageous enough to win the nomination or the Presidency. That has morphed into a very visible permanent voice at DU that usually breaks along two lines: One that Obama is consistently outmanouvered on strategic grounds, this despite the fact that his strategy in the primaries and GE was basically flawless and that he has passed all of the major legislation he has put out so far. The other camp is a combination of he either isn't ideologically pure enough or doesn't have the courage to go for real progressive change. Since the latter group seems to be more dominant I lumped them together.

In any case the number of people who have seriously underestimated the President is a sizeable and growing number.

After Iowa I learned my lesson not to underestimate this guy.

[zipplewrath]

27. Inexperience

I don't think he's dumb, or lacks in courage. I just think he is still thinking like a community organizer, or a senator. This job is different. The degree to which he can drive the debate is greater than he is displaying.

[grantcart]

35. He is driving the debate

Everything that is being discussed, from Sotomayor, to cap and trade to health care reform is from his agenda and nowhere else.



It is true that he did not deliver an ultimatum to Congress with a finished bill but had he done so then the argument would have been that he is an imperial President that doesn't understand Congress. At some point you will have to leave the experience fence and join the ideologically pure with either he didn't have the brain power or 'balls' to be successful.


In the meantime the number of people who have underestimated the President and been proven wrong grows by the day.

[zipplewrath]

36. So he wants to be talking about death camps?

He's way off message. He started into this explaining we had to do it or all of our health care costs would become unaffordable. And here we are in August discussing death camps, deals with big pharma, and whether there is an astroturf problem.

[Hutzpa]

44. What???

:crazy:

[Autonomy]

45. Heh. If he did not respond to the kooks

with the big megaphones, he'd definitely be in the "not courageous enough" AND "not smart enough" camps. He'd be a dual-camper.

He's a fighter, and he ain't taken no shit off fuckin' Sarah Palin.

[polmaven]

57. Death camps? Nah!

Now Death Panels, THERE'S a whole different story!

Hey! Maybe the Death Panels can send the folks they don't think are worthy of gittin medical treatment to them thar Death Camps! Whaddya think?

[bertman]

58. Easy there, zipplewraith. You're trying to infuse reason into a worship service. They do not mix.

Those of us who only view President Obama as an intelligent, highly-motivated, and competent human being and NOT the Infallible Chess Master of the Universe are never supposed to imply that his accomplishments need to be scrutinized in a less than totally flattering light.

This "camp" crap is just like the fricking Republicans and their "you're either with us or you're against us" bullshit.

[zipplewrath]

64. Trying to be objective

I don't really agree with the vast majority of the characterizations around here of either stripe. He's not an idiot, evil, or a tool of the corporations. He's not the chess master or an alien. He's a guy with little experience in the executive branch. What he knows comes mostly from his community organizing kind of activities (including moving legislation through a legislature). In that role you have to leverage other peoples needs/wants/opinions/etc. He's in a different role now. He's the leader of the band. He isn't the lead drummer in the back that has to work with the trumpet section. He's the drum major in front of the whole band.

I've lived through my share of democratic presidents. We have a long tradition of electing "rookies". Guys that were a tad overwhelmed by the job. Truman, Kennedy, Carter, even Clinton (although he was one of the more prepared ones). LBJ was the guy that knew how the office worked. He was transformational. He got the Civil Rights act passed (try that when 1/3 of your own party isn't going to support it). He started the whole Great Society. He didn't do it by seeing what the GOP would support, and he didn't worry about the whole DLC, get the lobbiest on board first, approach. He lead. The people were ready to follow. Obama went in with alot of support, which he could have used to move the debate. There was huge support for public options, single payer, and negotiating with Big Pharma. He could have used that to pull the GOP his way. Instead, he tried to move their way to see how much support he could get. He doesn't understand yet that he can "push them around" without looking like a bully. I presume he'll learn.

[bertman]

77. Interesting comment regarding us Dems electing rookies. I agree that LBJ knew the

game and how to get things done. Did he write a book? Maybe we could get President Obama to read it.

President Obama is very intelligent so I'm hoping that he will learn quickly not to be Mr. Conciliator with these Republicans. They are obstructionists first and Americans second.

[zipplewrath]

81. Nation building

If he's reading the book, it appears he's stuck on the chapter about nation building. We need him to move on to the chapters about transformational changes, not just book keeping.

[Enthusiast]

65. While we all can agree that

President Obama has not been ideologically pure, it is also clear that the Republican response has been idiotically pure.

[freebrew]

59. The cause IMO in two words:

Rahm Emanuel

[verges]

33. Well it IS summertime!! t

And they do serve Kool-aid at camp.

[grantcart]

34. actually if you can follow the logic of the analogy your the ones going to camp

there is the "he is not smart enough camp" and the "he isn't courageous enough camp" and as you rightly noted both serve kool aid.

[TheBigotBasher]

89. Other than a second term

how does a President become experienced? A b/s talking point.

[prolesunited]

13. Did Obama promise all of this?

Or is it just what *you* wanted to happen?

Show me links where Obama said he was going to do all of these things?

Obama has never advocated single payer and his troop withdrawal plans for Iraq were much less ambitious from the start.

Honestly, I would like for all of these things to be happening, but when I campaigned and voted for Obama, I was under no illusion that he was going to deliver any of these things.

[zipplewrath]

15. Expectations

It's been done before, but you can go back and find him speaking favorably of single payer, and troop withdrawls, mostly from the primary. We are now reduced to arguments about what constitutes a "promise" versus "an ideal" or "favorable leaning". My real point in the list is that people are writing up these lists of accomplishments after the fact. As an exercise for the reader, write a list now for the definition of "success" in another 7 months. See how many play out.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Moving goal posts.

people are writing up these lists of non-accomplishments after the fact.

[ChiciB1]

30. You See... I WORRY About the NEXT 7 Months!! What More Can I Say??? n/t

[Cha]

17. I like your angle on this, grant!

Much more factual than the whiny posts asking if Pres Obama is just like gw bush?

[grantcart]

22. Thks Cha

[CakeGrrl]

20. K/R

[Hutzpa]

21. Rec already

this is gonna be fun watchin teh stu.... ha! never mind.

:beer:

[tabasco]

24. But I want utopia NOW!!!

[George II]

75. Not yesterday?

[KoKo]

25. What you don't adress is that the "New Guy on Job" has to Prune and Kick Ass...or he's Not Respected

Where has Obama done this? He hasn't fired any of the DOJ Team of Fundies that Bush/Cheney put in place..He hasn't Closed Gitmo, Bush/Cheney Drones are fired by kids doing Video Games "Taking Out..Collateral Damage" innocent folks in Afghanistan just as they've done in Iraq for Years, and the "Wall St. Foxes" are in charge of the "Hen House!"

So?..........:shrug: It's your call.

[Prism]

26. Ah, the retrofitting of goals to match accomplishments

This is like saying you set a weekend aside to paint a room, tile the bathroom, and whip the yard into shape.

Then you make breakfast, do laundry, check the mail, and go grocery shopping. Looking back on the weekend, you declare "Yes, I did accomplish some things."

Yes, you did. But the house is still falling apart.

[grantcart]

32. But actually the reverse was true

The house was falling apart and he kept it from imploding. His harshest economic critics, like Paul Krugman, now confirm that we were much closer to complete implosion than previously expected and that the step back, a combination of calming presence and significant actions, has - according to them - brought us significantly back from a precipice.

So in your analogy the President is the one who kept the house from going over the cliff and your the one that is complaining about the tile in the bathroom.


Thanks for stopping by.

[Number23]

39. Bam!!

:rofl: When you're done with it, can you hand that poster back their face???
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[cliffordu]

41. Welll....to quote my daddy every time he schooled me.....

"Here's your ass, I hope you like the platter..."


:rofl:

[Prism]

50. And the Republicans thank you

The corporations and conservatives put in a place a game with rules engineered so that they always win. Krugman and others pay a price in order to play that game. The price is using the creative numbers provided them when discussing the economy. Hence the concentration on the 9.4s rather than anlyses on underemployment, the actual conditions of the underclass, real, measurable poverty rates rather than pre-arranged estimates, etc. Stopped the implosion? The only thing kept from implosion were the banks, and even then, they didn't really need the money. It was a con, and a transparent one, but no one will have the courage to say so because both parties are complicit in the further theft of our nation's money and resources.

We discuss "the game". And you discuss the game. And the more you discuss it, the more little pieces of progressivism and liberalism fall away. Notice how quickly your devotion to equality shriveled in the face of power. Notice how quickly we expect less and less and less from any health care reform. Notice how we continue to fight two wars with barely a word about either. Notice how expectations are whittled away over time, and those who expect anything are mocked, derided, and jeered for having the same principles today that they had on January 19th.

Notice and notice and notice how the "accomplishments" you trumpet are actually minor things. The game remains safely intact. The corporations continue to run away with billions of dollars while the people are left with, what, a car program?

You are now part of the game. You are devoted to mocking and diminishing left-liberal dissent in favor of the nation's power structure, and you do it in defense of the crumbs given the people while the politicians and corporations enjoy a banquet.

How does it feel to know you're doing their work for them? It seems to be working well. You've a ready-made machine that creates groups of "others" to deried and mock and dismiss now that "your guy" is the powerful one.

Here's the secret. He's not your guy. No one in that office is. You only serve the powers that be, and you are apparently very, very loyal in that regard. But most useful idiots are.

[bread_and_roses]

54. And amen to that. (n/t)

[ElboRuum]

79. Your suggestion?

Well if the game is this rigged, we can't EVER win. Right?

I mean it is the logical conclusion to the "game" isn't it?

You seem to suggest that the only winning move is not to play.

So... what's the alternative? The suggestion? I hear all of this all the time in all modes, methods, and means, but this is the one thing I really want an answer to. No matter where I go for the answer, all I ever hear when this is brought up is crickets.

[billh58]

82. "Mocking and diminishing..?"

Sometimes I am as puzzled by the Far Left, as I am by the Far Right. I am a Liberal American Democrat, a veteran, and a senior citizen. The anti-military, my-way-or-I'll-pout, me-me-me, crowd who presume to speak for Liberals by calling themselves "Progressive," are no better than the neoconservatives who want to legislate their version of "morality" for ALL Americans.

Do I agree with everything President Obama and the Democratic Congress have done? No, but then I never expected to, and I knew that when I voted for them. I am overjoyed, however, to NOT have another group of Republican neoconservatives chipping away at my Constitutional Rights, or allowing Haliburton to rob our treasury.

[Uzybone]

28. KnR

[madamesilverspurs]

29. Way to sneak up on the clueless!

Sometimes I really like sneaky. Heh.

[Cha]

31. Oh wow! Do I ever love your

Reality Check buttons!

[HopeOverFear]

38. You know what else? If ONLY Obama were pushing for single payer

he wouldn't be encountering so much opposition from the RW, Blue Dogs and the insurance industry. They'd go "universal healthcare? Sure, why the hell not?" and just roll out the red carpet. IT'd be easy peazy.


Right?
















Right?













Heh.

[Lisa0825]

40. K&R&FB'd!

Thanks! Great post!!!

[cliffordu]

42. HAW!!!!!

K&R!!

Good stuff, grantcart!!

[anneboleyn]

43. Grea post! Thanks, it made me feel better about the health care issue.

I really hope the dems get a plan through. I can't stand the republican evil on this issue.

[Umbral]

46. Glad to see the needs of the Corporation so well serviced by the Obama Administration

Since that's the only thing mentioned that has actually been accomplished. The rest are just so much insubstantial hope and dreams. I notice any mention of Afghanistan is conveniently omitted. And it must be noted that should Obama's health care reform initiative fail, anything else he's done wont amount to a pile of piss. Except, of course, to his corporate benefactors.

[SpartanDem]

47. K&R

[DesertDiamond]

48. REC!!! Thanks for the beautiful list of what he's done. I'm sitting here sick with the flu and

you just made me feel terrific!!! Thanks again!

[saltpoint]

49. There you go again, grantcart, making sense and being positive.

[CitizenPatriot]

51. k and r

delicious, really.

U need to open up the third camp: the back seat driver camp. you know: "How I'd be doin this shit and makin it work camp??!!!!??? cuz series, I got all the answers and I know all the players. Just go in there and bust some chops! And he's a loser, yada yada."

Just wait until next year at this time. We'll have health care (if all the backseat drivers call their reps instead of makin wise cracks about community organizing - Sarah Palin, is that you????) and then it will be something else.

[blue neen]

52. "If he really knew what he was doing..."

My son would have signed papers yesterday to buy his first house, because Obama would have had an $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers included in the stimulus bill!

Thanks for your post, as we know in this family that the Obama Administration has definitely had a positive effect on our life.

:yourock:

[Jester Messiah]

53. But... but... WHERE'S MY PONY!?!?

Hehe, sorry, couldn't help myself. :evilgrin:

[Lerkfish]

55. well, by now in Bush's presidency he had gone on vacation for over half of it, and ignored

the threat of bin laden attacking us....


so.....


not a hard act to follow. :)

[Hekate]

85. What?! Obama cuts no brush?! He ignores no briefings?! What's wrong with the man?!!!1!1

Where's the photo-op birthday cake while people drown?

Hekate

[bread_and_roses]

56. Meanwhile, out here in the real world....

Chris Hedges sums up the biggies pretty well:

The American empire has not altered under Barack Obama. It kills as brutally and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under George W. Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury to enrich the corporate elite as rapaciously. It will not give us universal health care, abolish the Bush secrecy laws, end torture or “extraordinary rendition,” restore habeas corpus or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of citizens. It will not push through significant environmental reform, regulate Wall Street or end our relationship with private contractors that provide mercenary armies to fight our imperial wars and produce useless and costly weapons systems.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/10-2
...to which I would add, it will not accomplish even minimally necessary labor law reform (Employee Free Choice Act), sane drug law/war reform, "Free" trade reform, public funding of elections, public works to repair our dangerous infrastructure and give people work...I probably forgot a few.

Did he promise all these things? No. Are there many on which he at least intimated during the Primary that he held progressive positions (as speaking favorably of single-payer) that he rapidly abandoned in the General? Yes. Do the times demand them? Yes, without a doubt.

Can he do all these things alone? No. Are the Democrats in Congress largely useless? Yes.

Do I blame "us" as well as Obama? Yes. We have forgotten what real action is, we keyboard warriors with our e-mails, for whom actually picking up the phone and calling a "Representative" is a big deal. We don't compell the media as well as a bunch of 18 yr. olds did in the 60's, and we don't have the mobilizing effectiveness or courage shown by poor and oppressed African Americans in the Civil Rights movement or poor, ill-educated, oppressed workers in the early Labor struggles. We are lazy, cowardly, and ineffective.

But...though I knew full well who I was voting for in the General, I also had "hope" (silly me) that largely because of who he is, Obama would show more forceful leadership on these issues. He was a Black man in America. He had been a community organizer and seen real poverty, seen first hand the appalling price the poor and working class (which includes large swathes of those who call themselves "middle-class" who are a few pay checks away from near-destitution) have paid for our corporate-run governance.

Instead, he has become the prime avatar of the "scraps and bones" mentality and its Party, the pusillanimous Democrats. And while I surely wish I could numb myself to the degree it would take to cheerlead along with you, I'm afraid I can't, and consider you part of the problem. The seas will be rising and the entire continent of Africa starving, children dying from lack of health care here while their formerly employed parents nurse them in tents under bridges, and our fearless "leaders" and corporate masters running off to guarded estates in Central America and you will still be out there waving your arms and saying "but look at the PROGRESS we made!"

I did not vote for more incinerated and dismembered children in Afghanistan, or to assist giant corporations in poisoning the commons without penalty or to shore up the architects of the greatest wealth transfer from the laboring class to the parasite class in history. And that's what I'm getting. It's not good enough.

[Myrina]

62. +1.

Thank you for some perspective. :patriot:

[Enthusiast]

66. I'm going to go with what Hedges said

on this. :hide: Too bad congress is full of corporate lackeys.

[JenGatherer]

68. I applaud you

Bread and Roses.

[bkozumplik]

87. couldn't agree more

I cant think of a way to make the meaningful impact I want. donate? protest? vote? letters?
really? thats the extent of whats changeable and the mechanisms available?
One thing for sure, any level of insurrection sure wont work here. Americans like their stability, and damn everything else and everyone else.
I think TV is the key to whatever is done next.
Whatever we do and wherever we go as a people, TV will be the driver.

I liked Vonnegut's interview in 2003:
And so it is with anti-war protests in the present day. Then as now, TV did not like anti-war protesters, nor any other sort of protesters, unless they rioted. Now, as then, on account of TV, the right of citizens to peaceably assemble, and petition their government for a redress of grievances, “ain’t worth a pitcher of warm spit,” as the saying goes.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0603
or
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/44/

Vonnegut was frickin great.

You know protest zones? Those zones where free speech is allowed that the Bush regime created? those are still in use now that Obama is in office. I think they are here to stay. As if protests were really effective lately anyway.
Interesting times.

[ClearPresentDanger]

61. k&r

[Jennicut]

63. I love how these threads devolve into two groups

You are either the kool aid drinking cheerleaders or the totally disappointed never going to vote for a dem again camp. Sigh. I think considering what he is up against Obama has done well so far while at the same time I think he has made some mistakes. But I am going to see what happens rather then deciding right away that he is the best President ever or totally a disappointment. This back and forth against each other while the crazies dominate the news and town halls does nothing good for us.

[Enthusiast]

67. No, Jennicut.

There are millions of us in the middle. We are disappointed, to be sure, but we continue to hope for a change of course. We also hope to see the media embarrassed out of taking GOP talking points seriously-something that should have happened long ago. Yes, many of us keep on hoping but grow weary of being slapped down.

[zipplewrath]

69. More like starting point

You can't call it "devolving" when it starts out with some sort of cheerleading post intended by implication to confront those who are vastly less encouraged. And I would point out that the very purpose of this site is so we can have the "back and forth" without having to deal with the "crazies" at all.

[grantcart]

88. There is nothing in my OP that states that we don't wish that more was done.

Personally I can't see how Obama can do more without a higher functioning Congress.


Our Democratic Leadership has not even backed up the fight to bring Gitmo prisoners to the US, and that is a very very low bar for courage.


The response to this thread is, I believe, a reaction to the reflexive and vitriolic Obama bashing that can be witnessed hourly at DU.


It is possible to admire the President and still want more, but many many people posting here are flat out Obama haters.


Again I don't think the President is going to accomplish much more if the Democrats in Congress don't start to stand up and fight.

[firedupdem]

70. k&R! n/t

[Buzz Clik]

72. Just want to say thanks, grantcart.

A little ray of sunshine...

[George II]

73. Imagine how well he would have done if he was an American citizen!!! (wink)

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

86. (snarfle)

[nightrain]

76. wonder what would happen if Obama got some different (more progressive) advisors than

Rahm, Zeke, Geithner, Summers, that crowd???... Oh yeah, and the war perpetuators. I could fantasize on who Kucinich would have chosen.

[defendandprotect]

84. Agree . . . the people who created the problem called on to fix it . . .!!

[kevsters]

78. I read the title of your post and thought of Genn Beck...

But instead, it would be "If he really knew what he was saying."

Check out Glenn Beck's logical conclusion that a level playing field in our society will lead to slavery.

I am not making this up. Here is the clip.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2490

[Hekate]

80. Rec 186. Thank you, grantcart.

:hi:

Hekate

[WinstonSmith4740]

83. Great!

Can I recommend it more than once?:fistbump: