Barack Obama

[Babapranja]

Obama Rulez

[TracyCoxx]

With BO's international tour and recent international events, we've found out something else he sucks at. Foreign policy. Why threaten to shoot down North Korea's missile if he's not prepared to actually do it? He looks like a fool now. Not that I really wanted him to shoot down North Korea's missile, but don't make the threat unless you can back it up.

Now he's discovering how useless the UN is.

Doesn't he have anyone who has a clue about international protocols that can advise him? When British Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to visit BO, he brought:
- a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert's authorized biography of Churchill, all seven volumes of it.

- a framed commissioning paper for HMS Resolute, rescued by an American whaler in 1856 (part of HMS Resolute was later made into the desk presented by Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, and used by American presidents to this day).

- a pen holder fashioned from the timber of HMS Gannet, a sister ship of the Resolute that also served for a time on anti-slavery missions off Africa (if it weren't for this ship, Obama's ancestors from Kenya would likely have been made to be slaves in Arabia).

Obama's gifts to Brown?
- a special collector's box of DVDs containing 25 American movies
- toy helicopters modeled after Marine One from the Whitehouse giftshop for the PM's sons.

Michelle Obama then made the horrific mistake of touching the Queen. I don't see the big deal, but if that's against protocol, she should have been briefed (or perhaps she was).

Then after meeting the King of Saudi Arabia, the President of the United States prostrates himself and kisses the ring upon his hand.

Headlines from abroad:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
Obama presented himself as a 'new kid on the block'... as a newbie who still had a lot to learn.

Suddeutsche Zeitung:
Obama's words have a certain degree of humility to them and sometimes even a slight meekness. Obama is not trying to make himself look like an important global leader, but instead is taking pains to speek in a clear and direct manner so as to avoid problems.

London Telegraph:
Isn't it time for him to go home yet?... His long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact... I'll wager that within a year or so he'll be marked down as a wind-bag.

Frankly, I hope he makes his international tour permanent.

[sesame]

Ah, gifts and presents from the US diplomats... Hmmm, it brings up the memory of the recent Clinton stupidity. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greeted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, she presented him with a big red & yellow ugly looking Reset button. On that button was engraved "peregruzka" in Russian.

Mrs Clinton said, "We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together. We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it correct?" she asked Lavrov.

"You got it wrong," Lavrov said." Both diplomats laughed. "It should be "perezagruzka" (the Russian word for reset,) Lavrov said. "This says 'peregruzka,' which means 'overcharged.'"

[sesame]

Cowboy capitalism
always depended on subsidies to businesses
such as corporate farming, suburban development,
pharmaceuticals, energy and aerospace. George W. Bush
and the Republican majorities of the early 2000s simply
drove this essential hypocrisy to a disastrous extreme
by increasing deficits and allowing deregulated
financial markets to run wild. In the process,
they ruined the world economy
and pushed it off the edge.

[TracyCoxx]

Sesame, you're already skating on thin ice since you've made claims about Bush somehow being the sole cause of the financial crisis without backing any of it up with facts. Now what are you ranting about?

I looked up the first thing you wrote:

Originally Posted by sesame

Cowboy capitalism always depended on subsidies to businesses such as corporate farming...

The facts don't seem to be on your side...

Originally Posted by Reuters

President George W. Bush vetoed the $289 billion U.S. farm bill despite the likelihood of a congressional (democratic congress) override, saying the bill subsidizes multimillionaire farmers while Americans face higher grocery prices.

So who is practicing "Cowboy capitalism"? The democrats in congress? I won't waste my time with the rest of your rant since you'll probably want to rethink it, assuming you've thought about it at least once.

But let's get back to this:

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Alright, enough of this BS. The cause of the financial meltdown has been explained enough in this thread for whoever will read it. YOU prove that Bush caused the financial mess.

[Vanillas]

I voted for Obama and have no regrets. He is, excuse the cliche', the man for the times. He is one of the few - though certainly not the first - US President who could be described as such. American politics are dialectical and the history of the country is largely the history of the tensions and counter-tensions that comprise this process. While the majority of presidents have been centrists (Bill Clinton is a good example) there have been a small number who have pushed the country and the body politic too far from center. This has also happened as the result of the collective policies of a series of presidents (Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, for example). But whether one or several, the necessary corrective is always the same: A presidential successor who creates a counter-tension that begins re-establishing the center (although not QUITE the same center as before but, ideally, a more democratic one).

The above could be described in Hegelian terms as Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. A historical example may help to illustrate this. John Adams (thesis) served the last four years of the Federal period, a time of centralized power in the Executive Branch. The exceedingly close election of 1800 (recall that it was decided in the House of Representatives and by a single vote) went to Republican (aka Anti-Federalist) Thomas Jefferson (antithesis). His election ushered in a period of States' Rights and a decidedly weaker national government. This in turn resulted in many years of centrist presidents and relatively calm politics (synthesis). Another such president was Andrew Jackson who successfully defeated Nicholas Biddle and vetoed the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, a bank that, had it gone on unchecked, could have conceivably owned the country. Other examples include Abraham Lincoln following the feckless presidencies of Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan; The rigorously honest Rutherford B. Hayes following the corruption and cronyism of Ulysses S. Grant; Theodore Roosevelt fighting the entrenched second generation robber barons; And, in the memory of many people alive today, FDR following the ideologically bound Herbert Hoover. Thus each of these presidents served when policies or conditions had shifted so far from center as to make them untenable. The times called for a president who was sufficiently courageous and visionary to take the country in a decidedly different direction, toward real progress that can only come from synthesis.

Finally, it is my contention that Barak Obama is, or certainly has the potential to be, such a president. Following the economic excesses of deregulation and the cowboy xenophobia of George W. Bush, he is certainly off to a good start.

[CreativeMind]

Originally Posted by Vanillas

I voted for Obama and have no regrets. He is, excuse the cliche', the man for the times. He is one of the few - though certainly not the first - US President who could be described as such...

The times called for a president who was sufficiently courageous and visionary to take the country in a decidedly different direction, toward real progress that can only come from synthesis.

Finally, it is my contention that Barak Obama is, or certainly has the potential to be, such a president. Following the economic excesses of deregulation and the cowboy xenophobia of George W. Bush, he is certainly off to a good start.

I don't know if I'd say he was off to THAT good a start. In the time he's been in office, Wall Street has actually gotten WORSE than it was under Bush, and so far -- despite committing the United States to a possible $3 TRILLION deficit for the coming fiscal year AND committing us to deficits of up to $1 Trillion per year for the next 10 years as well (all of which FAR EXCEEDS any spending excess that Bush was responsible for) -- the economy STILL hasn't stabilized. In short, for all that money spent, to date you got boopkiss. Nada. The big donut hole.

Look, Obama's our President so on a purely American level, I will root for the guy and hope he does a good job -- for ALL our sakes. I think that's a natural inclination most people have, to HOPE that their latest President won't turn out to be a total schlub. But so far his economic plans stink... some of his cabinet appointees are dubious at best, if not outright appalling... his foreign policy views are 180 degrees opposite from mine, so he's not gonna gain any points there... and now we have this whole brouhaha over the "torture memos", which is actually threatening to divide the country again and only polarize us even MORE.

But I have to hand it to the Left-leaning press yet again. I laughably love how they tilt every headline or byline to lean Obama's way to help the guy out...well, that is until you ACTUALLY read a news story with a discerning eye and take into account the ACTUAL facts.

Latest laughable example: yesterday the AP wire issued an article with the headline: Americans High On Obama; Direction of the US. The first two paragraphs of the article then stated: For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public's mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future. Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington.

The only problem is, that was an INCREDIBLE parsing of words. If you ACTUALLY read the REST of the article, buried down in paragraph NINE it then stated: And yet, the percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the right direction rose to 48 percent, up from 40 percent in February. Forty-four percent say the nation is on the wrong track. Not since January 2004, shortly after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has an AP survey found more "right direction" than "wrong direction" respondents. The burst of optimism didn't last long in 2004.

Huh? Excuse me? Let me get this straight. The HEADLINE states "Americans High on Obama and Direction of the US" and yet THEN you're telling me...almost as if purposefully trying to bury it in the article...that only 48% of the people actually feel that way. Which means that LESS THAN HALF of the country actually feels that Obama is doing okay. I mean, last I recall my high school math, 48 was still less than 50.

Not to mention, you're talking about a 48 to 44 split -- with 44% of the American people definitely feeling he's NOT doing a good job and the country is NOT headed in the right direction. That's nearly a tie right there. So why doesn't the headline more ACCURATELY say "100 days into Obama, Americans still evenly divided on direction of country." Oh, that's right -- because if you said THAT and actually told the TRUTH, then people wouldn't instantly be able to see a pro-Obama headline, which is what you want MOST in journalism to create a subliminal impression upon those who only skim headlines or the first two paragraphs of a news article.

And even MORE laughable is the fact that, as with any poll, the final line of the AP article also states -- again as if mumbling under their breath so you don't pay attention -- The AP-GfK Poll was conducted April 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved telephone interviews on landline and cell phones with 1,000 adults nationwide. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Excuse me? A 3% margin of error? Gee, that means the split could actually be 45-44, meaning Obama still has LESS THAN HALF of the country supporting him and in fact its only a ONE POINT DIFFERENCE between the two opposing sides.

But hey, why quibble about the truth when it makes SUCH a better banner headline and reveals SUCH a more obvious bias to declare "Americans high on Obama; Direction of US" as opposed to being RESPONSIBLE journalists and more ACCURATELY saying (for example): "Confidence in US up; But still less than half revealing a bitter divide" or some such headline like that? Which would be the truth and would be FAR more reflective of the actual facts that the article itself put forth.

Either way, we're only 100 days in with over 1,000 left to go. And in that time, as I noted, the economy stinks... unemployment continues to worsen... news reports today indicate a new wave of credit card defaults are heading our way like a tsunami which could result in yet another massive bailout... home mortgage defaults and foreclosures are also up again... oh, yeah, and for all the smiling that Obama did overseas while saying "America was wrong in the past and I apologize for everything we've ever done", Europe STILL gave him the finger about helping to fight terrorism, and Iran is still that much closer to having an atomic bomb, which will surely destabilize the Middle East.

But hey, on the positive side, at least soon people will be able to PayPal money to someone they know in Cuba or maybe buy some cigars.

So, added together, I'm not ready to proclaim Obama the savior of our country quite yet OR even say how good (or bad) a President history will ultimately judge him to be. On the other hand, given the way he's going with his policies, I might need to make a sign soon, so I can get out there and participate in the big Fourth of July Tea Parties that will be coming up next. Simply because I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Obama tax and spend strategy -- ie. "Hey, guess what? Your taxes ARE gonna go up! BIG TIME! But hey, I smile nice and make you feel good, so I'm sure you won't mind me and Congress pilfering your wallets and bank accounts some more!"