Interesting article on the first months of Obama's presidency.

[blackangst1]

Also a related interesting article:

The Broken Dreams of Obama's First Term

 

[Craig234]

This article shows why Obama was not the right person to be president in 2008; we needed a real liberal leader, to fix things like they have in the past, and Obama had a misguided fixation on some sort of 'centrist' cooperative approach that was not going to do any good. But he was the one who could get elected.

It was a real missed opportunity, but it would be hard to do much better with money and media and politics the way they are right now.

 

[Ninjahedge]

What we needed was a centrist with just the right counterbalance in his approach to be able to hit the center after his position made "compromises".

What we also need is less fire-branders in gubbermint that are more intent on getting people to yell a lot at rallies and more concerned with actual, and sometimes painful, solutions.

We can either get the polio vaccine and cry about the needle or just go swimming in public pools a lot and take our chances. No politician wants to remind us of what could go wrong unless they can easily blame it on someone else.

 

[Jaskalas]

Who cares if he is 'victimized' or not? It's a big boy's world out there.

To me, it reflects quite poorly on Obama because of his inability to recognize the impact of a radicalized opposition party as well as a lack of understanding of just how deeply radicalized Republicans had actually become. To me this just shows that his team was largely incompetent politically for the first two years of his administration.

Cheer up, he started making progress when he cut social security taxes. Making it collapse faster than it already was is a great ploy to force the Republicans to the table.

 

[Jaskalas]

This article shows why Obama was not the right person to be president in 2008; we needed a real liberal leader, to fix things like they have in the past, and Obama had a misguided fixation on some sort of 'centrist' cooperative approach that was not going to do any good. But he was the one who could get elected.

It was a real missed opportunity, but it would be hard to do much better with money and media and politics the way they are right now.

You didn't quite have a super majority in the Senate, so it doesn't matter who was President they weren't getting stuff done.

 

[Thump553]

I don't think it was naive to expect the GOP to negotiate/cooperate at the start of Obama's administration. We had just gone through an election where the GOP (including Congress) got roundly thumped & I think most people would attribute their losses to two things (1) proven bad policies and (2) the electorate's rejection of partisan bickering/grandstanding.

That was of course before the "rise" of the tea party, which is readily apparent now to be the same old moral authorianianism/neo conservatives with a new label (don't believe me-try to distinguish the GOP of 2000 from the GOP of 2012-exact same issues, exact same bogus remedies).

 

[Darwin333]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza
It was also interesting to see that Obama's team was worried about deficits causing bond rates to go up, the same argument many on here have used. An argument that also turned out to be laughably false.

I don't know that I would call it laughably false that at the time they didn't think that Europe would blow up nearly as bad as it has. We are like the hooker with herpes while Europe is the hooker with aids, if you HAD to pick one you would go with the herpes all day long.

 

[fskimospy]

Cheer up, he started making progress when he cut social security taxes. Making it collapse faster than it already was is a great ploy to force the Republicans to the table.

I don't think you understand the social security tax cuts.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I found the article to be very even handed and matter of fact. It certainly didn't spare the criticism of Obama for dumb political moves and a misunderstanding of the severity of the recession we were facing.

I also don't really find its points about Republican radicalization to be something that can be argued.

As I said it was well written, however the basic misconceptions in the summary make me wonder as to how well the author understands things in their entirety and how much expressed was filtered through with a sympathetic bias. Considering that absolute objectivity does not exist that is understandable to a degree and as you point out the Republicans have become their own worst enemies. Nevertheless when one makes a "and pigs now fly" equivalent statement, it causes me at least to wonder. It does seem that a confederation of dunces (or at least moral cowards) is all pervasive in government, opposing those who would be leaders in order to make sure they follow the rules of the parties. To some degree I am sympathetic to any President who would do good. They have so much against them in the form of mindless inertia.

 

[Craig234]

You didn't quite have a super majority in the Senate, so it doesn't matter who was President they weren't getting stuff done.

You're right that Republican filibuster abuse was a problem, but we could have got more done.

 

[uclaLabrat]

great way to get support in your threads!

He's right. I've seen few posters as devoid of logic and analytical thinking as this one. Previous post as case in point.