what are barack obama's flaws?

I certainly didn't expect his Justice Department to file briefs with the Supreme Court urging it not to hear arguments in favor of releasing photos of torture.

goole stop asking for "perfection" - only Jesus Christ would make any effort to right such wrongs, everybody else needs to focus on what's important: a win in the Senate

I knew he supported the FISA compromises and would probably keep Bush's cool new executive branch powers, but Holder's move there was breathtaking in its capitulation to the unitary executive theory of government.

j0hn bro you are making it v difficult to agree w/ you

what the fuck dude stop misinterpreting me -- im talking about your stance here of calling this a 'failure' of a presidency -- what president's gold standard are you holding this up to -- presidents are assholes -- FDR interned japanese ppl -- every president is 'disappointing,' im talking about working w/in the world we actually live in

goole stop asking for "perfection" - only Jesus Christ would make any effort to right such wrongs, everybody else needs to focus on what's important: a win in the Senate

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Monday, December 14, 2009 12:44 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what does 'a win in the senate' mean -- do you mean health care? because i do think that is 'what's important'

But that doesn't stop one from saying, "Presidents are assholes -- FDR interned American citizens of Japanese descent – but here's how Obama in particular is an asshole."

and to be clear deej if he'd hang a scooter libby out to dry, something, anything, to indicate something other than total moral cowardice in the face of what 8 years of bush turned this country into - a nation of people for whom torture & indefinite detainment without charge is an unpleasant fact of daily life which they subsidize with their own money - I'd be placated. "moving forward" is bullshit. the man in the oval office has the names & notes of the people who tortured. either them or the people who commanded them need to be brought to justice. it's never going to happen. 100% permanent no-excuses crap imo.

i find myself searching for the reasons for doing that [xp to Alfred: re: the torture photos] -- necessity of legal continuity? need to keep the CIA happy while they are dying in SW Asia? foreign gov'ts have begged for no more riots in muslim cities? -- because the prospect of Holder thinking it's really the right thing to do, is really really gross.

j0hn i really don't know how to respond to what you are saying. is there really a response? i could repeat myself. i probably will.

(and in the face of that, yeah, whatever, a health care bill - deck chair on the damn titanic if we just go "yeah, some bad shit went down, you guys don't really need to know about it, let's just move along")

(goole I was being sarcastic, pretty sure you & I are on the same side here)

can someone fill me in on the STD apology for o's lack of movement on stuff like torture etc? is it still "it'd tear the country apart?" or is it that he'd blow capital and get stuffed on healthcare and other plans that Look Forward?

got ya -- so universal health care is simply a mea culpa for not prosecuting gwb for torture

Listen to Beltway hack Chuck Todd tell us what would happen if Obama pressed ahead on prosecuting lawyers who authorized torture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2LroD5_IbU

xp evidently I can't keep up

ugh @ chuck todd not realizing that his framing is exactly the problem

iPhone, can't watch. my q was srs btw

"best" answer about torture: it would be extremely distressing to the CIA and military, who need to be kept in some kind of fighting shape so we can get out of two wars (u can not agree on this, of course), and yes, suck up any valuable oxygen needed for health care, the economy, anything else. and it has no constituency. americans like torture. they took to it very easily and don't want to let it go. they are mostly happy to forget about it and move on.

"worst" answer: obama and his ppl are narcissistic enough to think that merely electing them to not-torture is a good enough solution.

none of these is a good answer, mind u.

and, see, Todd is yet another guy who thinks that Practical People understand how torture is a "distraction" for the President.

thx goole

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious, which is that photos of the US actually torturing detainees would be first-rate recruitment materials for al-Qaeda etc. I'm sure if considerations of Americans' safety didn't factor into it, Obama would like nothing better than to embarrass and shame the Bush administration. It's pretty much a slam-dunk in terms of domestic politics. The fact that he refrains shows some of the maturity required of being commander in chief, IMO.

can someone fill me in on the STD apology for o's lack of movement on stuff like torture etc? is it still "it'd tear the country apart?"

it's "he wouldn't get reelected and be able to do the things he really wants to do/the really important things" IIRC and to try to make it plain that I do get the argt, I just don't agree with it: look, there are small gains to be made, which have real impact on people's lives: health care; the economy; jobs. On these, the Democrats, led by Obama, can make gains, and repair some of the damage to the system done by 8 years of neocon economics (really 28 years of neocon economics I'd guess, gotta defer to people who can really describe how Clinton engineered the years that followed Bush I). If Obama chooses to do something huge & make-or-break like prosecute members of the previous administration (or people who would be compelled to point up the chain of command), he risks the midterm elections for sure, and probably reelection, and these losses would have human costs -- less people getting the jobs we hope the Obama administration will produce; less statesmanship and back to the adversarial international ways of the previous administration, which demonstrably harmed us at home and abroad; less of the small good gains we believe tend to be made on behalf of normal working people under Democratic administrations.

How'd I do?

"so universal health care is simply a mea culpa for not prosecuting gwb for torture"

I accept this apology!

so deej is your position seriously "nothing can be done" on torture? like, it happened, too bad so sad for dudes who got tortured, we promise not to do it again?

um, no ...?

it's "he wouldn't get reelected and be able to do the things he really wants to do/the really important things"

jesus christ will you fucking stop it with this re-election line since NO ONE HAS EVER SAID THIS TO YOU EVER on this board. nor have I read any pundits say anything like it.

yeah i dont know where the re-election thing is coming from j0hn is that something your irl friends say or what

irl friends?

thx j0hn!

intemperate raccoon lovers

do you guys live in some dreamworld where 1st term presidents with sympathetic house & senate are never thinking about elections?

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/03/01/01_raccoon_lgl.jpg

don't thank me yet gbx evidently my understanding of the whole thing is based on a fallacy, to wit, that politicians sometimes seek reelection

no one here is arguing that Obama should/shouldn't do things based on how it would affect his chances for re-election, is all I'm saying.

Obama is surely performing that calculus, but that's beside the point.

I'd argue not so much a fallacy as much as an unstated assumption but that arguing would take away time I could spend posting this:

http://www.lepenquotidien.com/valentine.png

GAH

Obama is surely performing that calculus, but that's beside the point.

wtf, that's the entire point

"no one's ever said that to you" - conceded! how does that even matter?

(gonna stop the raccoon pics before I get sbed but I found a DOOZY)

http://www.greatdreams.com/political/Don-Quixote-Windmill.gif

GODDAMN IT HI DERE

WHAT THE HELL

well why should ilxors formulate defenses for arguments ilxors are not making? that's more about politeness than politics, tho...

xps ok what is with the raccoons

I had another long post about how Obama's definitely NOT gonna be more liberal in his second term but it got eaten apparently... Obama's doing the calculus to get elected, no doubt. I'm sure he's aware that the majority of modern president's major legislative accomplishments are achieved within the first two years of their first term. By the second term the President is often severely compromised politically and also lacking in the political capital to get things done with congress.

But, even so, Obama is NOT promising to be more liberal if he gets re-elected. You have posted, repeatedly and apparently without any provocation, that this argument - that Obama will be more liberal if he gets re-elected - is being used to silence criticism. Even though, NO ONE IS SAYING IT. this is not that complicated to understand, frankly I'm kinda surprised at your harping on this...

x-posts

it's "he wouldn't get reelected and be able to do the things he really wants to do/the really important things" IIRC and to try to make it plain that I do get the argt,

you "get" an argument that you just made up, that is ahistorical and illogical, and that no one on ILX is making. good job.

I don't think the argument is really that Obama is going to be more liberal if he's re-elected. The argument is that he isn't being very liberal now so that he will get re-elected; what he does in the hypothetical second term is entirely up in the air.

My counter-argument is that all Obama really ever promised to do is be more liberal than McCain. He isn't as liberal I want for him to be, but I knew this would be the case going into things and therefore it is difficult for me to feel betrayed when 85% of his responses to issues have been in line with how he campaigned.

(btw 85% is a precise statistic that I just pulled out of my ass)

..except for torture. and the banks. but maybe we got the wrong impression from all the populist sunshine?

The torture thing is the most misleading thing he's done IMO and even there I am not 100% prepared to pass judgment because I haven't spent as much time as I want to spend digging into the issue and getting info from multiple sources in an attempt to get to what the real facts are.

(which is a weaselly way of saying "I stopped paying attention but IIRC the last thing I heard on it really, really sucked and I should stop playing WoW long enough to confirm it")