what are barack obama's flaws?

i like a little lawyering

I wasn't "trying to overlook" it, but it did not come to mind. What I was responding to concerned actual spending during the Obama years (holding only the President responsible while absolving a mostly-Republican Congress), and did not regard deals that did not transpire and whose content is not publicly known. What has been reported about the 2012 grand bargain sounds consistent with what has been reported about the one in 2013 and what the President publicly stated were his terms for any such approach - that they be revenue-neutral. The deals seem to have fallen apart when Republicans sought to reach agreement on terms that they could characterize as such when in fact they were revenue-reducing. Some commentators on the left suspicious of the President seem to have done the reverse.

btw, it is apparent that Moo hasn't read the ILX Style Guide, yet. Writing like a junior partner in a corporate law firm wins few friends around here, regardless of the strength of the brief.

― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, February 22, 2018 9:55 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I apologize for my breach of etiquette, but that is not my aim, nor should it be the purpose of any reasoned argument.

I'm also pretty sure that isn't how junior partners in corporate law firms write

I always assumed that the US had already butchered their welfare state so savagely since the 70's that Euro austerity was merely copying that model tbh. And yes, that might be a very wrong assumption!

My scan of that Dissent article, to which I'll try to go back when more attentive, suggested a relative absence of quantitative or other meat on the bones of its characterization of the socioeconomic landscape, but did include a mention of what I think is probably Obama's primary flaw as a public citizen, which is a certain overoptimism about the extent to which the opposition, domestic or foreign, means well (or at least the performance of same). Then again, it was that quality that played a not-insubstantial role in his gaining the office, so it's more a governing than political flaw.

I apologize for my breach of etiquette

You did not commit a breach of etiquette. You simply erected obstacles to easy comprehension. Our minds here are reasonably porous, but the pore size tends not to admit large blocks of text or long strings of polysyllabic words. This is a common failing and it wisest to accommodate it when writing for human consumption.

or just do whatever feels right man

I've never bought the "believes the opposition means well" angle (once ascribed to Obama in a Woody Allen interview I read, fer chrissake); he's smarter than that.

whew I'm delighted we can discuss Barack Hussein Obama's flaws for once

I'm not sure who or what prisonculture is, but I suspect they're unaware of or actively seeking to misrepresent

Morbs follows them and pastes them here so

I've never bought the "believes the opposition means well" angle (once ascribed to Obama in a Woody Allen interview I read, fer chrissake); he's smarter than that.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-09/has-anyone-seen-the-president

Back when he was president, Barack Obama told me that only two people treated any interaction with him as a zero-sum game. One was Vladimir Putin, the other congressional Republicans. Both behaved as if there was no such thing as a win-win situation: Any gain for Obama was a loss for them, and any gain for them must also entail a loss for Obama. The moment that the Russian president or congressional Republicans saw he wanted something, they went to work trying to keep him from getting it -- even if it was something they might otherwise have approved of.

That's more than two people, but hey.

what he believed or did not believe is not really the crux of the matter

Well, on this thread, it arguably is.

"We didn't have a scandal that embarrassed us," he said. The former president admitted that his team made mistakes, but no massive screw-ups. He then said, "I know that seems like a low bar," at which point the audience burst into laughter. "Generally speaking, you didn't hear about a lot of drama inside our White House," he said. This was the closest Obama came to critiquing the new administration.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/02/26/barack-obama-mit-sloan-sports

you didn't hear about a lot of drama inside our White House

there's always a lot of mini-drama in every WH that grabs attention inside DC, the kind of stuff insiders swap at cocktail parties, but Obama's WH probably generated fewer news stories about internal squabbles and jealousies than any WH I can recall.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/poll-barack-obama-the-greatest-president-of-our-lifetime.html

I knew Chait wrote it!

next time someone complains to me about millennials i'm gonna show them that chart where every generation but them picks reagan as their favorite president

https://media.giphy.com/media/6FR1VVFE0qM9y/giphy.gif

I want to know how people born in 1980 are supposed to be milennials

cos it refers to anything

If we're all alive by 2020, we're millennials.

Strauss and Howe came up with "millennial" during the 80s. iirc, the idea was the first millennials were going to graduate high school in 2000, i.e. born in '82. what's made this confusing is that nowadays it seems to be a synonym for "young person (whom I have contempt for/have invested last shred of hope in) aged 18-26"

Had an hour to kill before a Jays game, and didn't have a book with me, so I bought a copy of New York for this cover story--thought it was quite good.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/where-is-barack-obama.html

(May have been posted elsewhere--I see there's a newer issue out now.)

missed opportunity for a Thanos meme header image

every generation but them picks reagan as their favorite president

Then I fucking well transcend my generation and I'm proud of it. Reagan flooded more raw sewage into government than any president before Trump.

icymi

https://www.newsweek.com/obama-administration-used-tear-gas-pepper-spray-border-dozens-times-cbp-data-1233255

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/the-obama-boys

not necessarily new territory, but a pretty thorough rundown of the shortcomings of obama's presidency

don't tell me that Rep. Omar has opened the door to heresy!

Glad to see the link to that pernicious Sorkin TV show is acknowledged.

Thinking lately a lot about the contrast between Obama and McConnell as political figures -- Obama played a strong hand badly and McConnell has played a weak hand amazingly well. Obama took an overly conciliatory approach when he had a popular mandate, achieving much less than he could have, whereas McConnell is absolutely maximizing the use of any advantage he has, making impressive strategic moves that will impact our political system for decades.

Obama is loved, McConnell is hated even in his own party. But McConnell is the one whose legacy will be more greatly felt.

it's a lot easier to plat defense in the senate

mutombo for senate 2020

He should run for the house imo. That way he can use his signature “not in my house” finger wag when voting against key legislation

yes, i'd say offering to privatize Soc Sec was "overly conciliatory"

Yeah, the only thing McConnell managed when he had the votes was a tax cut and Supreme Court justices. Everyone could have done that.

you are out of your mind. First of all, he got them an extra Supreme Court seat by refusing to hear Garland. Second, the tax plan is a masterstroke -- it crushes the donor base in high tax blue states.

and does so in a way that also punishes democratic voters and lines up with republican ideological priorities

If you think McConnell crafted that legislation, as opposed to just sponsoring it, you do not understand how bills are written these days.

And also, it's not a masterstroke, lol, where on earth is that coming from?

tax cuts for the rich are actually ok
- fred

y'all are obsessed

hi fred, longtime reader, first time responder. What are you talking about? The GOP tax plan was specifically designed to stick it to blue states, and let me assure you, it is doing just that.

Maybe it's hard to get a good sense of that from Denmark, but it's very clear in Westchester County, NY where I work every day -- exactly the kind of high tax, good public schools, democratic leaning area that that aspect of the bill was targeted at. And btw, of course McConnell did not draft the bill, but the limit on deduction of state taxes was a key plank and he definitely made sure it stayed in.

It's also going to fuck the federal budget pretty bad when next recession comes, which is exactly what they want.

BTW, the Supreme Court isn't the only federal court, and McConnell has helped to both minimize Obama's impact and maximize Trump's as far as appointments. Those are lifetime appointments, just like the Supreme Court.

He also fucked Obamacare pretty good. I'm not saying all of this was him alone, but in general the GOP has done very well strategically considering their platform is not popular with Americans -- they have maximized what they could achieve with their backing. They've given themselves a lot of long-term advantages and backstops, whereas Obama's achievements were somewhat minimal given the mandate he came in with, and are more easily erased.

I don't doubt that it's brought hurt to blue states, nor that it was designed that way, but I'll still dispute that it's a masterstroke that, as you wrote, crushes the donor base in high tax blue states. I don't think either of us are in a place where we can really know that, since, well, there's been no national election since it passed, but so far it doesn't seem to have 'crushed' the donor base as much as it has pissed them off. Those areas are where GOP were wiped out in the house, and it seems to me that apart from Warren, it's going quite well with the fundraising for Dem candidates? Plus, rich people donate more to GOP politicians anyway, so it could just as well hurt

I also think that unless either Obama or McConnell convinced Patrick Leahy to adhere to the blue slip standard even though it was obvious that Republicans wouldn't do so in return, that you're giving them more credit than they deserve on this issue.

Former President Obama expressed concern about the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, saying he feared it could end up undercutting allies.

Speaking at a town hall event on Saturday for the Obama Foundation in Berlin, the former president spoke about the need for compromise in politics, citing the Affordable Care Act as something that he said signified progress even though it did not achieve all of his aspirations for U.S. health care.

"One of the things I do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States —maybe it’s true here as well — is a certain kind of rigidity where we say, 'Uh, I’m sorry, this is how it’s going to be,' and then we start sometimes creating what’s called a 'circular firing squad,' where you start shooting at your allies because one of them has strayed from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall effort and movement weakens," he said.

a certain kind of rigidity

as opposed to a certain kind of mushiness or floppiness? I think the metaphor he is overlooking here is the essential combination of rigidity with flexibility that is provided by having a backbone.