what are barack obama's flaws?

in fact i bet that obama is closer to the optimist/cynic model

its funny how everyone buys the optimist/naivety package

^^^. The right wing has been all "SEE? SEE? AUDACITY OF HOPE MY ASS!" the last couple of weeks; they've accepted the narrative that Obama is a New Kind of Politician. To me he's "new" only in that he understands the importance of words and is uncommonly quick-witted.

yeah i dunno if thats directed at me or not but i agree -- im not saying i dont believe the guy isnt genuinely optimistic, but i def dont believe he's remotely naive, like not even remotely remotely xps to jhoshea

not directed at u in the slightest deez

paranoid/optimist ^^^ lol

More on Obama & civil liberties: he voted to make permanent all but two of the PATRIOT act provisions that had been originally passed with an expiration date - so not exactly a wide-eyed innocent on that front.

i mean, this guy is naive?? he comes across as a freaking borderline genius to me

Early on I thought he came off as naive when he said that having lived abroad was a foreign policy credential. Like not only naive for thinking that (which he might not have, really), but naive for thinking it sounded good.

i really don't think disappointments with an obama presidency will be with character flaws per se.

something that occasionally makes me uneasy about his campaign rhetoric is that he'll elide the differences between kinds of identity, most problematically ethnic and economic identities. being Latino isn't really like being rich even though there's a fair degree of mystification cast over class as culture in this country. i don't really know where i'm going with this; it fits his overall message well to talk about the poor/rich divide as bridgeable, but that's a divide that economic policy should be targeted at eliminating or at least bringing closer, it's not like the problem is, oh if only poor people and rich people could just sit down over coffee and talk.

which i'm sure he knows and in part he's hemmed in by the landmine that is talking about class in America.

oh if only poor people and rich people could just sit down over coffee and talk.

-- horseshoe, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5:48 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3448/l10342545qc8.jpg

(ahem, not that I've seen it.)

isn't the deal with character flaws you see powerfully ten years after that they're the things you saw as VIRTUES at the time

no one's going to be lookin back at president two-term obama and sayin "yes how did i not see he was naive?" -- what will piss you off abt him will be a quality you were pleased abt back when you voted for him

he will beat me in basketball and steal my girlfriend

maybe but i was really (maybe willfully?) blind to the bill clinton is untrustworthy thing in the 90s. i can see how it was the flipside of his charm in retrospect, i guess.

xpost

edwards was better at talking about class that obama, as i remember, but i also think its "easier" to talk about class as a white guy than it is as a black guy

and the flip side of that was that edwards was no good at talking about race.

uh, whatever that would mean, i guess

I wish he was an atheist -- with his oratorical skills he could do lots for the millions of us who want to hear a convincing defense of godlessness put to theists. And yet, and yet, I suspect he IS less of a god-fearing man than he pretends. Something about his preternatural coolness bespeaks a kind of deism.

I kind of like to think that Barack Obama's reasonable optimism is engendering a sort of secular spirituality in the country.

it pretty funny fighting bill clinton and being all ooooh yah ok now i see why he got under yr skin so bad

i really want obama to give a truth bomb class speech like he did with race. lol campaign fan fiction.

xposts

also easier to 'talk about class' when you're never gonna be Prez and just want to influence the debate

at the time (i was like 10) i didnt believe that shit, just thought it was partisan & desperate

Nobody's gonna call bullshit on a 10 year-old and what studying up on the Clintons?

hes never going to be able to give a speech about class with that kind of credibility after the "bitter" thing

i think edwards wanted to be prez xxp

I didn't say he didn't want to be prez

No results found for "obama edwards slash fiction".

also easier to 'talk about class' when you're never gonna be Prez and just want to influence the debate

-- gabbneb, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5:00 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, i think that's basically right.

hes never going to be able to give a speech about class with that kind of credibility after the "bitter" thing

-- max, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 5:01 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

okay, in my imaginary fan fic scenario, an in-depth justification of the "bitter" thing would be the pretext for the entire speech! OMG AMAZING, RIGHT? but yeah, whatevs. i love him.

He worked his way up the ankles to Jim's knees, and then his thighs. As Edwards's hands continued up Obama's body to his torso, they traveled lightly over Obama's full rear end. Edwards's blood quickened at his first touch of such an interesting area of flesh.

He lathered up Obama's stomach and carefully rubbed the soap over the other man's front. "I am pleased that your chest is once again free of hair," Edwards remarked. Then he ran his foamy hands over Obama's pecs, grazing both nipples at once.

"Mm," Obama grunted in answer. More of his penis went turgid. Edwards continued to clean him as if he hadn't noticed, moving soap all around Obama's back without missing an inch of skin.

Edwards returned to the floor and gathered more soap into his hand. Now he ran his curious, searching fingers against Obama's inner thighs, exploring the contours and lines there which were uniquely Obama's.

this ad kicks the gas tax freebie's ass

http://thepage.time.com/2008/04/30/obama-responds-to-clinton-in-new-north-carolina-indiana-ad/

turgid

at the time (i was like 10) i didnt believe that shit, just thought it was partisan & desperate

Nobody's gonna call bullshit on a 10 year-old and what studying up on the Clintons?

-- jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 6:00 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

my thesis on bill clinton in 96 was that i was happy there was a cool democrat in the white house instead of a creepy old republican and he liked jazz and made jokes and seemed smart and my mom liked him

i didnt know the word 'partisan' then but i do remember thinking all the armchair psychology was jealous haterz not serious analysis

haha lil guy otm

thats the thing is, i dunno if it was just stopped clock/twice a day shit or if idiots like jonah goldberg actually managed to see the truth about bill clinton and liberals were blinded by triumphalism

Nobody's gonna call bullshit on a 10 year-old and what studying up on the Clintons?

ethan gets a pass because he has well-formed opinions about records and a job in a muppet museum. it's when folks like suzy talk about being smarter and ballsier than average that makes people upset

oh man xposted to death again

wtf about my post made ppl think i was making serious policy & character judgments at age 10???? ive been pretty clear on ilx that ive only soured on the clintons in the last 7-8 years

lol tom what made today defend-suzy day?

and before you answer read these two sentences:

Edwards returned to the floor and gathered more soap into his hand. Now he ran his curious, searching fingers against Obama's inner thighs, exploring the contours and lines there which were uniquely Obama's.

anyway if I had to pick something that's a virtue of the guy that we're going to regret two terms from now it's that he has too much faith in people which is what this whole thread has been about the end

max: people being really boring about hating suzy and gabbneb. it'll be like one tiresome post that breaks the camel's back with stuff like that on ILX and then I just go off. you know this

it reached the TIPPING POINT

ive defended gabbneb a lot, and suzy is surprisingly inclusive with her class-hatreds, but generally suzy/gabbneb zings still make me lmao

peak zing

my thesis on bill clinton in 96

You were 13 in '96.

i'm surprised that everyone's saying clinton's flaw was "untrustworthiness" - he was a dlc democrat for years and that's exactly what we got; i think he actually tried to follow through on pretty much everything he said he would

to me his tragic flaw was his charm - he could charm the pants off anyone, and it brought his world down around his ears

I followed the '84 race when I was 8 </gabbneb>

those things are the same thing!

xpost to tracer hand

liberals were blinded by triumphalism

Did liberals believe Clinton then? Most of'em were warily happy there was a Democrat in the WH.

untrustworthiness and charm are the same thing??