what are barack obama's flaws?

hush steve and albert, can't jeopardize the reelection

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Saturday, December 5, 2009

y'know, no one EVER says this to you so it'd be nice if you would stop endlessly parotting yr favorite strawman argument k thx bye

and yeah I agree with max - the left's job right now is to relentlessly pressure Obama. they're needed as a counterweight.

And Obama responds well to it, seeing as it's one of the things he really wanted people to do once he got sworn in.

The right has no problem bitching about their candidates' wingnut cred; I advise the left to keep the pressure on. It's doubly difficult for the left though: it's in the same position as the right in the sixties and seventies, i.e. no mainstream venue through which to air its views.

wait, what? the right had Nixon!

well, after '68 anyway

also not to malign anyone on this board but a lot of lefty activists would do well to remember that depending on where they live their political interests would likely be better served by campaigning hard against right wing senators and representatives and for left-wing candidates--not that criticizing obama is bad just that theres an election coming up and the president is not going to be on the ballot

no its all his fault for telling me to HOPE

Couple of months back was talking to my agent about editing a collection where a bunch of high-profile people lobby Obama on their issues but got project fatigue in the sense of 'oh great, this might be the flipside of right-wing black man micromanagement'.

i take a small (very small) amount of comfort from what amounts to "if he can't do it, no one can"

which isn't to sound like a schoolchild, it's about the very serious structural limits on governance in this country.

this particular candidate, the way he won the primary, the coalition he put together to win the presidency, in a moment of contempt and fatigue with the governing party/personality that we haven't seen for decades, plus a world-historically severe economic meltdown -- repeat the phenomenon similarly in congress for the candidate's party -- add it up, and this is about as far left as you can really imagine the electorate putting its federal government.

and this is what we've got. barring truly fantasy-land results where the GOP share in congress drops to like a third, this is the highest water mark we're ever going to see in one direction. and it's still very disappointing. the right wingers didn't get social security privatized. we still will probably get health care. if you lined up and shot every senator and erased the upper house from the page of history, we would have by now. cap and trade, too.

you can judge obama, the individual, against whatever criteria you like, and you should. i'm disappointed mostly in those things that the executive DOES have near-exclusive control over (torture, DADT) that have been soft-pedaled. but judged against the available alternatives, he's still the best option for his job.

i'd be happy if he drop-kicked Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Bob Rubin from a helicopter into a shark-tank.

yes i don't trust larry summers at all, and the other two are basically in his orbit, as far as anyone can tell.

i read econ wonks saying they wish paul volcker and/or sheila bair had more leverage, but i don't know enough about $$$ to know why or what.

a lot of the joblessness is basically up to ben bernanke however, and he's recently said he's fine with it, not in so many words.

DADT is going to be repealed next year - Barney Frank has said so, and the president has signalled this as well

(its part of some military funding bill or something, I forget)

its important to bear in mind how bad the last 8-12 years were - that shit isn't gonna all get washed away in 12 months by some Executive Branch magic

speaking of strawmen, mr. strawman-spotter, nobody even remotely suggests anything might "get washed away in 12 months by some Executive Branch magic." that's your kneejerk deflect-criticism-of-the-failing-ass-president move: "hey, you're asking for PERFECTION! you weren't promised perfection!"

DADT is going to be repealed next year - Barney Frank has said so, and the president has signalled this as well

can we hear in advanced how ugly the "compromise" is going to be so we can be braced for it, please?

i have mixed feelings about Bernanke. on one hand, i think that he did a great job during the worst moments of the financial crisis; and (unlike Paulson, Rubin, et. al.) i don't think that he's venal and corrupt. OTOH, he was also complicit in the crisis in that he did little to nothing before everything turned to shit and yes, he seems less than concerned about unemployment (i.e., which is what non-economists think about when they think about the economy at all).

i fall b/w the morbz "god he sucks lol i told you so to the barricades!" camp and the gabbneb/ethan doe-eyed fan-boy camp re Obama. i expected him to be a centrist Democrat (campaign rhetoric/bullshit nothwithstanding), and that's what he's been by and large. doesn't mean that i wish that Obama could be a little more than that or that i am not disappointed with some things that his administration has done, but i am not really surprised either.

i notice when i try to sort out the deeper structural (that word again) problems to why gov't looks and acts the way it does, beyond what any one actor (even a president!) does... stone silence.

Actually, your post was mostly on-the-money, goole.

Four Senators have put a hold on Bernanke going forward, yes?

MOSTLY?

what are goole's flaws?

nobody even remotely suggests anything might "get washed away in 12 months by some Executive Branch magic."

I beg to differ. Complaints about Gitmo still being open fall into this category, for example. Suggestions that he should just withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan do as well, for another example. Or that he could magically make gay marriage legal and repeal the DOMA act... all of these complaints have been lodged against him by the left, sometimes even by posters on this thread (and others), and frankly, they're stupid. These are all things that are left over from the last 12 years of shitty governing, they cannot be reversed quickly.

now there are things I can specifically remember you complaining about - rendition, for example - that are totally legitimate. and its important to hold Obama accountable for that stuff.

stabilizing the economy, ARRA, healthcare reform, closing Gitmo, withdrawing from Iraq, putting the EPA back to work (regulating greenhouse gases, letting CA fuel efficiency standards go forward, etc.)

these are all good things

I must've missed about three o' those.

My ARRA/COBRA discount is expiring in February, wonder if I should spring for the 200% increase...

Matt Taibbi on Obama's financial advisors:

The significance of all of these appointments isn't that the Wall Street types are now in a position to provide direct favors to their former employers. It's that, with one or two exceptions, they collectively offer a microcosm of what the Democratic Party has come to stand for in the 21st century. Virtually all of the Rubinites brought in to manage the economy under Obama share the same fundamental political philosophy carefully articulated for years by the Hamilton Project: Expand the safety net to protect the poor, but let Wall Street do whatever it wants. "Bob Rubin, these guys, they're classic limousine liberals," says David Sirota, a former Democratic strategist. "These are basically people who have made shitloads of money in the speculative economy, but they want to call themselves good Democrats because they're willing to give a little more to the poor. That's the model for this Democratic Party: Let the rich do their thing, but give a fraction more to everyone else."

what I don't get is why everyone feels so deceived (in:re economic appointments, etc.)?

My parents were all excited about Obama when he was running. Bush had made me so cynical it was hard for me to get excited about anything at that time. I gave in and watched one of Obama's speeches. In an aside, he said "of course we believe in globalization, of course we believe in free trade". i may not like his economic policy but i am not surprised by it. (and really, once he started making his appointments and invited a lot of the clinton establishment back, why is anyone surprised by anything? its not exactly Clinton III but it sure wasn't going to be Mao sending Goldman Sachs out to a "re-education camp")

here's a somewhat contrary view from matthew yglesias:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/12/if-corporate-america-loves-barack-obama-so-much-why-dont-they-marry-him-or-at-least-support-his-policies.php

"corporate america" and "wall street" not being the same thing, exactly...

but i'm really not a fan of rubinism or larry summers.

Taibbi is good at rabble-rousing outrage as usual, but I don't think his article is very constructive. To read him, you would never suspect there could be such as thing as regulatory overreach. Perhaps there could be some valid reasons why a Congressional committee might want to fine-tune regulations which could have far-reaching impacts on credit-creation and the wider economy, even though a broad-brush approach of "Spank the Banks" might have more populist appeal.

can anyone point me to a reliable chart of US corporate tax rates compared to other countries?

Probably my biggest disappointment with Obama so far is the Afghanistan troop surge, but he's basically been true to his campaign promises there, so I have no justification to feel betrayed.

Taibbi is good at rabble-rousing outrage as usual, but I don't think his article is very constructive. To read him, you would never suspect there could be such as thing as regulatory overreach

Well, yeah, sure, but regulatory overreach never even crossed Obama and his Cabinet's minds, did it?

I'm sure Obama has influence, but regulation is currently wending its way through Congress, so it's a little premature to say what we're going to get at this point.

except Congress doesn't do regulations, the executive branch does

^^^erm no

Congress may have some input but congress writes/passes *statutory* authority, not regulatory authority.

I think basically Congress writes the rules and the executive branch enforces them.

no

In areas where Congress hasn't specifically written a rule, the executive branch has considerable leeway. But it wouldn't make sense for Obama to direct his cabinet to try to reform by working within the interpretation of existing law at this point when a big Congressional overhaul is coming down the pike anyway.

Timely article: "Sweeping bank reform bill clears House"
http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/11/news/economy/financial_regulatory_reform/

"a big Congressional overhaul" = the 2010 midterm elections.

Let's hope not - if it is, it won't be in the direction we want.

In any case, the inclusion of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) in the House bill should be seen as a victory for liberals (and Obama). Banks and Republicans fiercely opposed it.

We'll see.

i like Matt Taibbi b/c he is more than willing to kick the Rubins and Summers (and the Gabbnebs) w/n the Party around and call them out on their pretensions (which is MORE THAN RICHLY DESERVED imho). few things sicken me more than so-called Dems who shit on the middle- and lower-classes almost as much as Republicans do, but think that b/c they're willing to throw the plebes a few more crumbs than Republicans and b/c they don't hate gays and black people or thump Bibles that they are somehow "better" than the GOP (who at least are open in their contempt for the "lower orders.")

where i find Taibbi weak, though, is on just HOW we should have handled the financial world and the economy post-Lehman Bros. -- does he think we should've just let AIG and Goldman Sachs go under (a libertarian/Republican back-bencher view) or something else? maybe i missed the column(s) where he spelled out his ideas, or he just thinks that his role should merely be to point out how the financial sector is taking the American taxpayers for a ride.

b/c they don't hate gays and black people or thump Bibles that they are somehow "better" than the GOP

um, this does make them better than the GOP imho

and not to get all constitutional/administrative law-ish on folks here, but Mr. Que and nate are right -- administrative agencies are either part of the executive branch or independent of either the executive or legislative branches (e.g., the FCC). Congress can delegate "discretionary power" to administrative agencies to regulate in a given area, but not its legislative authority to an administrative agency (the so-called "non-delegation doctrine").

um, this does make them better than the GOP imho

you are right ... i should have said "simply because they don't hate gays and black people or thump Bibles." of course, that line of thinking also applies to lots of libertarians as well as the likes of Rubin et. al.

you would never suspect there could be such as thing as regulatory overreach

He really should give you a job, primo shit-shoveling.

Commenting on political threads now are we? Someone really woke up on the wrong side today.

that Nobel turned out to be an even sicker fucking joke than it seemed at the time; Strangelovian congrats all around, Nordic plaudit dispensers.