what are barack obama's flaws?

wtf is going on here

I think he's been a good president overall, would take a third term. Still something rubs me the wrong way about his hemmy-hawy answers to questions, like when he's trying to sound folksy and intellectual at the same time and his voice gets all caught up in his nose and jaw. I think he has a touch of the same "insincere" quality that Hillary has worse, and this may contribute to the right's dislike of him, though there are more obvious reasons why the right dislikes him. The only thing GWB was really any good at was seeming like himself.

late examples may also just be a sign of the fatigue of the presidency, perhaps a touch of mild depression or a feeling of having to go through the motions.

yes he seems increasingly more weary and beaten down with every shooting. which is kind of what I would want in a President. I do think he's been a great president. I am frustrated by the lack of progress in some respects but I think he's done what he could given how much internal opposition he faces on basically everything he tries to do, I've never seen anything like it.

i'm confused and upset by his immigration enforcement actions and the fucking drone strikes, i don't get how it squares with what he says he wants to achieve in the world

I think he sees himself as a logical centrist, and therefore drone strikes to him are a middle ground between sending troops in which could result in more deaths to both civilians and US troops; and doing nothing which, while keeping the US from being involved with directly killing civilians, will allow extremists to terrorize and kill civilians and others around the world

I don't think drone strikes and immigration enforcement are things he has to square!

But I think he would make an argument for it squaring with what he wants to achieve in the world, if he had too

yeah, the video that prompted my post was also very much in that "logical, reasonable middle ground" style, where he first bent every which way to assure the audience no one wanted to take their guns, then brought in an appeal to facts and data and science and an analogy about cars and various car-related policies (drivers' licenses, airbags, etc.), and finally expressed that a sensible regime could be created of letting all the hunters and sportsmen and self-defenders keep the guns they like while getting them out of the wrong hands. Hard to argue with, but a little bit lacking in feeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TwRmX6zs4

If nothing else Obama is definitely the funniest president we've had in my lifetime

that event is the ur-moment of trump's candidacy; you can see him seething with resentment (he even starts rocking back and forth) as obama mocks him

I'd point it to the moment where Obama says, "all kidding aside, obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience..." and the audience cracks up, clearly he's thinking "I'll show them all"

it gives a new literalness to he phrase 'politics of resentment'

sure he has flaws, but i still think he's probably the most 'normal' and certainly the most decent president we've had in a long time.

maybe this is an indictment of american democracy or just of the limits of my imagination, but i just can't see this country at its present state electing anyone better at the job than him.

oops, i had meant to share that with this article/link

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/us/politics/obama-after-dark-the-precious-hours-alone.html

yeah i liked that article a lot

oddly related to this line about the night: "it's smaller. it lets you think."

can you imagine 7 years with a maximum 5 hours of sleep a night? jesus.

is he the first president in decades who cares so much about the prose of speeches and actually writes many of those speeches himself?

probably -- i don't know much about carter, but i can't imagine him being quite so detail oriented.

obama's obviously brilliant, and a better writer than i am obviously, but he's not a great speechwriter IMO. when giving proper speeches, he seldom has the quality of pith, and i can't think of many phrases in his speeches that are particularly memorable. the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expectations" that some hack put in GWB's mouth is more memorable than anything BHO has said... it's got assonance, a nice rhythm, parallelism....

I forgot that in the first few years Reagan wrote many of the big speeches.

The clarity of the Jeremiah Wright kiss-off was a tonic.

horrifying revive

'decent' my ass

Morbius who are your top ten presidents

Dylan
Dylan
Dylan...

I want to be open to the idea that the approach taken with Al Qaeda and ISIS has been a calculation relative to the amount of death of suffering that's been possible. Maybe I should be, but I'm still not entirely convinced that the offensive approach taken ultimately results in more death and suffering than what is possible if they are left alone.

I guess that's true of the initial impulse to defend that city in Libya than initially got us into that conflict, regardless of what ended up happening.

I guess that's *also* true, I meant to say

horrifying revive

'decent' my ass

― helpless before THRILLARY (Dr Morbius), Sunday, July 3, 2016 10:36 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

jeez, what took you so long?

Insight like that doesn't shoot from the hip.

i know a fucking pigshit moron who needs to die

Thats a terrible way to talk about steven spielberg

morbs transitioned from lovable crank to homicidal demagogue so gradually i barely noticed.

i lost a lot of respect for president obama when i found out how he stopped returning morbs's calls.

http://i.imgur.com/OZU6tpI.jpg?1

"What the... It's 3 am. This better be important."

http://i.imgur.com/ynOmM4h.jpg?1

"i know a fucking pigshit moron who needs to die."

http://i.imgur.com/NCBxxCS.jpg

"Aw, Morbs. Didn't know it was you!"

tbqh, morbs, you would be a lot more flawed as president than barry's been

he would dissolve the executive branch and we would live in an autarkist paradise forever

sorry to post-police but morbs "horrifying revive" would have been a totally hilarious standalone post and would have actually focused yr message but instead you went personal-attack. I am available to edit ppl's posts and my rates are reasonable

it wasn't much of an "attack"-- it was just an acknowledgment that i had indeed expected a morbs response, and that he did not disappoint. the response to that seemed like a significant escalation to me, but others may disagree.

i guess if this were a school playground--and i'm not sure it differs much from one sometimes--i would be told to simply "ignore" him. and that would be good advice! a bit harder to take after repeated "you need to die" posts though.

whatever. sorry to take up eyeball real-estate with this, people. move on.

Listening to Obama speak the other night made me feel proud to be an American. He always strikes me as a very moral and wise person, able to see how individual policies relate to a larger vision/pattern. His endorsement of Hillary made me like her more.

That said wtf is going on with these deportations? http://fusion.net/story/252637/obama-has-deported-more-immigrants-than-any-other-president-now-hes-running-up-the-score/ I think I have reconciled myself to the drones, which used to sicken me, as it's not clear to me what a "good" middle east policy would look like. But he is basically refusing refugees here -- these people are coming from nations torn apart by violence

Im not sure Ive even seen him address this policy

I do wonder if Clinton is intending to counter that policy but doesn't want to position herself against Obama at this point in time. She seemed to hammer home her intention to curb mass deportations in her speech last night. But, yes, it's fucked up (particularly since there are reported instances of deportees being murdered upon returning to their home countries) and I hope that she sees that.

i hope she stops it but why hasnt obama? Does he really just not care about these people?

1. explain that laws are dumb and should be changed
2. get shouted down
3. make executive decision to not enforce all parts of dumb laws
4. get shouted down more
5. enforce dumb laws to the very letter
6. reform vote now louder than ever

^^^

an act of political genius!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-wont-revive-obama-plan-to-shield-illegal-immigrants-from-deportation/2016/06/23/6cea5f1e-3950-11e6-9ccd-d6005beac8b3_story.html

for your consideration

https://theringer.com/president-obama-summer-playlist-spotify-8fd9c5696aaa#.eqlwfmkmi

i support malia obama smoking weed at coachella

XP thx 4 new dn

We're watching http://www.bet.com/shows/bet-presents-love-happiness-an-obama-celebration.html and why is Bradley Cooper at this thing?