what are barack obama's flaws?

well, there's our solution, I don't know why we didn't think of it before.

bcuz you were too busy putting obama at the center of your discontent

of the hundreds in power I am discontented with, he's been the most worshipped.

(or, here, save-an-O'd)

3/10

this is the center of our discontent

well, there's our solution, I don't know why we didn't think of it before.

― satan club sandwich (Dr Morbius), Monday, August 8, 2011 3:41 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

<3

While FDR’s inaugural did include salvos against the “unscrupulous money changers,” his actual policies in his first term relied heavily on cooperation with the business community. The NRA —which FDR hailed as the most important recovery measure—essentially allowed businesses to form cartels, under the friendly supervision of the pro-business Hugh Johnson. Many of the signal liberal accomplishments of the New Deal were not initiated by FDR; in several cases, the president came to reluctantly embrace policies that social movements on the left and liberal advocates in Congress forced onto the agenda.

Indeed, during FDR’s first three years in office, his version of the New Deal faced more serious challenges from populists and insurgents on the left than from Republicans. Far from the bold, unyielding advocate fighting off conservative resistance, the FDR of the first New Deal was navigating between competing ideological camps, attempting to build a broad, all-class alliance. Indeed, FDR was always surrounded by teams of advisers with widely divergent views of the government’s role and he kept them—and the public—guessing about which side he was really on.

This is true and worth repeating. But thanks to his uncommon shrewdness – with the exception of the court-packing battle he always read public opinion accurately – he was able to sign Glass-Steagall, Social Security, and the other liberal achievements we celebrate. I haven't yet seen this kind of shrewdness in Obama although I'm willing to be convinced.

Alfred you don't get it at all. Its not shrewdness, its unions

The unions were weak until the FDR administration empowered them (e.g. The National Labor Relations Board, Wagner Act, etc)!

Yes but the labor movement is what pushed for that, not fdr, there is no comparable movement today

I agree

this is the same deej who months ago said obama's biggest failing was his "messaging"?

Thats hardly contradicting the argument he made bro

A thorough analysis of the Cabinet and extra-Cabinet officers Obama has hired, sacked, or marginalized.

that's a great article. particularly this entry:

2. Karl Eikenberry: Commander of Combined Forces in Afghanistan before he was made ambassador, Eikenberry, a retired Lieutenant General, had seniority over both Petraeus and then war commander General Stanley McChrystal when it came to experience in that country and theater of war. He was the author of cables to the State Department in late 2009, which carried a stinging rebuke to the conduct of the war and unconcealed hostility toward any new policy of escalation. The Eikenberry cables were drafted in order to influence the White House review that fall; they advised that the Afghan war was in the process of being lost, that it could never be won, and that nothing good would come from an increased commitment of U.S. troops.

Petraeus, then Centcom commander, and McChrystal were both disturbed by the cables -- startled when they arrived unbidden and intimidated by their authority. Obama, astonishingly, chose to ignore them. This may be the single most baffling occasion of the many when fate dealt a winning card to the president and yet he folded. Among other such occasions: the 2008-2009 bank bailouts and the opening for financial regulation; the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the opportunity for a revised environmental policy; the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns and a revised policy toward nuclear energy; the Goldstone Report and the chance for an end to the Gaza blockade. But of all these as well as other cases that might be mentioned, the Eikenberry cables offer the clearest instance of persisting in a discredited policy against the weight of impressive evidence.

Ambassador Eikenberry retired in 2011, and Obama replaced him with Ryan Crocker -- the Foreign Service officer brought into Iraq by Bush to help General Petraeus manage the details and publicity around the Iraq surge of 2007-2008.

A commentary excerpt on Republican responses to the news in Libya and Republican views of Obama flaws:

Indeed, with the Republican Party wedded to a contradictory image of the president as foreign policy weakling and iron-fisted domestic dictator, we’re going to see a lot of bizarre rationalizing of what happened in an attempt to preserve this narrative of the Obama presidency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-rights-bizarre-response-to-libya-events/2011/03/04/gIQAPprNWJ_blog.html

taibbi on the feds leaning on ny ag eric schneiderman ~

But it seems to me that it might be time to wonder if is this the most disappointing president we’ve ever had.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/obama-goes-all-out-for-dirty-banker-deal-20110824

that wasn't really my takeaway from that article - we talked about it in the politics thread already anyway

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/guest-post-obama-team-feared-revolt-if-he-prosecuted-war-crimes.html

"Republican revolt" averted, whew

he's Cheney

ohh

http://images.wikia.com/wikiality/images/6/6e/Evilcheney.jpg

well, you know

http://politics.salon.com/2011/09/30/awlaki_6/singleton/

i don't know how gradually it happened, or whether it was always this way, but the subject lines of e-mails sent from the democrats/barackobama.com have become indistinguishable from maudlin, spurned post-break-up e-mails

Wish the top of this thread read "What are Barack Obama's Flaws?", followed by "See all 1923 of them."

i don't know how gradually it happened, or whether it was always this way, but the subject lines of e-mails sent from the democrats/barackobama.com have become indistinguishable from maudlin, spurned post-break-up e-mails

plz post examples! are they like "I Know We Can Try"?

I Don't Know What to Do with My Bombs

dying

Jim Messina, BarackObama.com It doesn't need to be this way

Jim Messina, BarackObama.com How this dinner thing works

Jim Messina, BarackObama.com Here's the story

"how this dinner thing works" actually made me lol

open the email & it's just http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/jan2009/6/0/CA6C33D3-E6A4-B0C1-C7DEDDF9319709BE.jpg

http://www.google.co.uk/search?gcx=w&q=barack+obama+eating&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=677

barack obama eating a v rewarding image search fwiw

Shield of Bankers:

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003568.html

there's enough nonsense in the book to not really take anything in it seriously

rly? have been planning to read it.

He's gone too far.

A succinct summary.

How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following?

(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (14) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/dear-andrew-sullivan-why-focus-on-obamas-dumbest-critics/251528/

Visiting Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom on the same day my parents do.

all is forgiven, he sang one Al Green line at the Apollo

fuck this country with a chainsaw

^kind of poetic

Hey guys, there's a lovely year-old vid on YouTube of Newt Gingrich explaining why we need an "all of the above" energy policy.

The More You Know.jpg

lHigh marks for SOTU.

we know the entertainment skills are high, so rong thread

Thirty-six hours later, I'm still getting my head around this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZooVI_ksU6I

anyone read Ryan Lizza's article on Obama's first few months?

At George Will’s house, Obama impressed his companions. He got a big laugh when he teased David Brooks, a Times columnist who is a less orthodox conservative than the others, by asking him, “What are you doing here?” Kudlow said that the tone of the dinner was essentially “We’re going to disagree, but we wish you well.” As the President-elect departed, Rich Lowry grabbed Obama’s hand and said softly, “Sir, I’ll be praying for you.”

I see the spilled-milk video I posted yesterday has been removed. A thousand of the country's top comics banded together, bought YouTube, and took it down.

Looking forward to the Lizza article. I remember the dinner. Another time, another planet.