Opinion of Barack Obama

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

One of the greats.

The revisionism of Atlas posters is shocking. It's as if everyone has had selective amnesia about the challenges confronting this administration from the party of treason, sedition, obstruction and libel.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

TNF showing off his True Leftist credentials.

Yeah, because we all know it's crazy to call one's self a left-winger and not support a man who wants to turn public education into nothing more than a parasitic "charter school" system, who continues to push austerity in the face of economic reality, and who's healthcare law requires everyone to buy insurance from the parasitic insurance industry.

http://www.webmd.com/brain/memory-loss

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

if he had gotten arrested when he was young for 'a little blow' (in his charming words) and subject to the same laws he enforces for 'disadvantaged youth' i can't help but wonder if the world would be better off today. ditto for bush

Yeah I'm sure President Clinton would be way better from your perspective.

Today's political climate is insufferable...

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

TNF showing off his True Leftist credentials.

Yeah, because we all know it's crazy to call one's self a left-winger and not support a man who wants to turn public education into nothing more than a parasitic "charter school" system, who continues to push austerity in the face of economic reality, and who's healthcare law requires everyone to buy insurance from the parasitic insurance industry.

http://www.webmd.com/brain/memory-loss

Did you forget to post an actual argument, or something? Just because the Bush years were awful doesn't mean that Obama is automatically an improvement. If anything, market logic has been employed far more efficiently under Obama than it ever would have been under Bush, because as you are so eloquently showing here, a good portion of the "left" has been neutered into supporting Obama for fear of another Bush.

The obvious response to this line of argument is that Obama is not really all that different from Bush in terms of substance. Style, sure, and that's a lot of what (really, in America, almost all of what) politics is. Obama has continued the Bush bailout policies for the banks (allowing them to grow even larger), pushed through an "auto rescue" package that gutted hard-won UAW pensions and largely let the companies off the hook for being managed in such a retarded way for such a long time, has pushed through "free trade" agreements, further eroding our industrial base and selling us out to foreign capital, enacted a federal version of Romneycare (which has caused a good number of people to lose their insurance as is and slapped a tax on high end union health insurance plans), and has proven completely inept at enacting anything worthwhile. (Can't even get through a measly $9 an hour minimum wage? Gimme a f**king break)

I post a link to the memory loss page because two of your qualms about Obama have nothing to do with the President's ideological disposition or what his ideal policy prescriptions would be but rather plans that he pushed due to present political constraints.

It's baffling that one of your chief complains is Obama's recent acceptance of "austerity" in the form of the sequester and recent federal cutbacks that have occurred since 2011. The President fought tooth and nail against the Republican Party's desire to destroy the economy through austerity measures but had little option in the face of continued obstruction/gridlock. This should be apparent to anyone who has been paying attention: Obama has repeatedly argued in favor of the prescriptions of Keynesian economics in the face of idiocy emanating from the Beltway class. His concessions have been minor. Ultimately, I think that economists and public policy experts will point to the Obama administration's fiscal policy as one of the few macroeconomic triumphs of the post-2008 crash: while Europe destroyed itself, America decided to pursue an initially aggressive response and reaped the rewards. We're in relatively good shape, the supposed bond market shocks predicted by neo-liberal hacks never happened and the President is still committed to economic vitality that engenders a prosperous society instead of having an accountant's fetish. Unfortunately, the 2010 midterm election happened.

While the Affordable Care Act is certainly a right-wing approach to establishing a healthcare system that achieves universal coverage, it is still an unprecedented legislative triumph on the order of the LBJ administration that will improve the lives of millions. Its form may be deplorable but the army of pharmaceutical, insurance and medical associations lobbied against an alternative renders the fight for a public approach futile. We learned this the hard way during the Clinton administration: no bill is popular when it is faced with a barrage of negative advertising and libel. If the effing ACA was able to elicit terror in the average American, imagine what a bill establishing a single payer system would do?

I don't disagree with your ideals, values and find you to be an ideological companion but I get the sense that you didn't witness these battles when they took place or at least weren't attentive.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

He's a good President being impeded by the economy and Republicans.  He can't just snap his fingers and get 4% unemployment and a rational Republican Party.  In the context of our current politics, we couldn't have done much better than Obama.

That said, I have three complaints.

He should have passed a bigger stimulus in 2009, with no tax cuts.

He should have gotten Harry Reid to axe the filibuster in 2009, asked the Congress to work overtime and slammed through legislation like crazy when Democrats controlled both Houses.  

He should have had more chutzpah and used the bully pulpit and the media to advance his agenda.  

I obviously agree with these criticisms but hindsight is 20/20: the extent of the economic crisis in early 2009 was not fully understood and the stimulus he signed was the biggest one possible. It was also incredibly impactful: our unemployment rate would have been at 14-15% without it and our "green energy" sector would have collapsed.

I viewed the President similarly until I read this book, which was really illuminating about the extent of Republican intransigence:

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

HP.

Who is self-centered enough to name his dog after himself?

You do realize Ted Kennedy got the dog and Sasha and Malia Obama named him?

I wouldn't know that, but then again, most non Obamadroids have better things to think about besides Michelle's bangs, or Sasha and Malia's dog.

Weird that you have this impression because the people most obsessed with these things are racists looking for aspects of the Obama family to criticize.