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The guy who also oversaw an economy that returned 401Ks to at least sane levels from -40% in 2007-8; the guy who actually said and then did get bin Laden; the g

The guy who also oversaw an economy that returned 401Ks to at least sane levels from -40% in 2007-8; the guy who actually said and then did get bin Laden; the guy who pushed for and signed a law that is as close to healthcare reform as anyone has gotten since Medicare was enacted almost 50 years ago; the guy who pulled us out of Iraq when the Republican candidate in 2008 said we should be there for 100 more years; the guy who has kept or compromised on over 200 campaign and administration promises? You can talk of "change" like it's some concrete label you can bend to whatever cares you want, but remember you voted for a President, not a King.

spot 15y ago
"pulled us out of iraq"? sorry but you are just making shit up.
sigzero 15y ago
I am so glad that we voted for a President because now we can vote his ass out.
- muhfuhkuh 15y ago
  And, vote in what exactly? Another person who'll usher in 2007-8 Economics Redux? Another war drum beater, this time in Iran and N. Korea? Another tax-breaking, deficit-piling theocratic nincompoop? Or maybe Ron Paul? Just remember, just a couple months ago, the only viable alternative to run against Obama was a Pizza guy who continuously ran infidelity trains on whatever thing slunk in wearing a skirt. You think "pizza pizza" was going to make everything all better?
  - Andrew_Quentin 15y ago
    Maybe Ron Paul. Why not. He is the best candidate out there. Better than Obama.
rbanffy 15y ago
> we should be there for 100 more years You make several good points, but I'd like to remind you that pulling out of Iraq now is very risky. If Iraq becomes a theocracy (either through a civil war or - gasp - free elections), the US will probably be compelled to invade it again. By now, it seems that the cycle of invasion-rebuild-pullout is more profitable to the political-military-industrial complex than a single continuous invasion. It's a war that should never have been started. Saddam Hussein was not a complete idiot and I am quite sure a negotiated transition over, say, 20 years, to a democratic society would have been possible.
- deskamess 15y ago
  I believe that post pull out, whenever it came, would be a time when Iraq reset itself politically. And it would be very messy time. It will take a cycle or two of elections before Iraqis feel they have their country back. Might as well get that cycle started as early as possible. If the Iraqis go to an Islamic system that will be their political choice. From a geo-political perspective, if the US wanted a non-Islamic state and, as a bonus, a buffer to Iran, then they seriously miscalculated when they overthrew the previous regime.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    It's miscalculations like this that create most of your enemies. The US needs to act more responsibly.
dpkendal 15y ago
> the guy who actually said and then did get bin Laden I'm fairly sure that Obama himself didn't "get" bin Laden. The army worked to get information on his whereabouts, and the opportunity presented itself to the President. I'm fairly certain that, aside from discussions about tactical moves, all Obama did to "get" him was give the army the go-ahead for the operation. > the guy who pushed for and signed a law that is as close to healthcare reform as anyone has gotten since Medicare was enacted almost 50 years ago Which was itself mostly a sleazy compromise like DADT, barely worth celebrating. --- Perhaps I was too hard on Obama. But his administration has been a failure on the whole, especially compared to the FDR-like, sweeping political moves promised during his election.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  FDR-like, sweeping political moves require not only an FDR-like President, but a corresponding Congress and popular support. For reference, FDR won 57% of the popular vote, while Obama got 52%. And when things didn't immediately improve after the 1932 election, the Democrats maintained their majority in 1934. Compare the dominance here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1932prescountymap.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1932prescountymap.PNG to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008prescountymap.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008prescountymap.PNG In short, the circumstances of the times did not allow for the kind of complete shift that the Great Depression triggered.
- wtracy 15y ago
  Obama deserves credit for giving the army the resources needed to catch bin Laden. Under Bush, most of those resources were diverted to Iraq. At the moment, this is the only relevant article that Google is pulling up for me: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/05/03/163155/bush-did-not-catch-bin-laden/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/05/03/163155/bush-did... (I know how sketchy a news source called "thinkprogress.org" looks--if you care enough to want a more reputable citation, you'll need to dig a little more on your own.)
city41 15y ago
He could have vetoed NDAA. He could have not extended the Patriot Act. Those are decisions he alone made. They are solely on him and no one else. If he was one tenth what he said he would be, he would have made the right decision.
strobgot5 15y ago
The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient. He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever. Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed"a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes. http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_pau...

spot 15y ago

"pulled us out of iraq"? sorry but you are just making shit up.

sigzero 15y ago

I am so glad that we voted for a President because now we can vote his ass out.

muhfuhkuh 15y ago
And, vote in what exactly? Another person who'll usher in 2007-8 Economics Redux? Another war drum beater, this time in Iran and N. Korea? Another tax-breaking, deficit-piling theocratic nincompoop? Or maybe Ron Paul? Just remember, just a couple months ago, the only viable alternative to run against Obama was a Pizza guy who continuously ran infidelity trains on whatever thing slunk in wearing a skirt. You think "pizza pizza" was going to make everything all better?
- Andrew_Quentin 15y ago
  Maybe Ron Paul. Why not. He is the best candidate out there. Better than Obama.

rbanffy 15y ago

> we should be there for 100 more years You make several good points, but I'd like to remind you that pulling out of Iraq now is very risky. If Iraq becomes a theocracy (either through a civil war or - gasp - free elections), the US will probably be compelled to invade it again. By now, it seems that the cycle of invasion-rebuild-pullout is more profitable to the political-military-industrial complex than a single continuous invasion. It's a war that should never have been started. Saddam Hussein was not a complete idiot and I am quite sure a negotiated transition over, say, 20 years, to a democratic society would have been possible.

deskamess 15y ago
I believe that post pull out, whenever it came, would be a time when Iraq reset itself politically. And it would be very messy time. It will take a cycle or two of elections before Iraqis feel they have their country back. Might as well get that cycle started as early as possible. If the Iraqis go to an Islamic system that will be their political choice. From a geo-political perspective, if the US wanted a non-Islamic state and, as a bonus, a buffer to Iran, then they seriously miscalculated when they overthrew the previous regime.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  It's miscalculations like this that create most of your enemies. The US needs to act more responsibly.

dpkendal 15y ago

> the guy who actually said and then did get bin Laden I'm fairly sure that Obama himself didn't "get" bin Laden. The army worked to get information on his whereabouts, and the opportunity presented itself to the President. I'm fairly certain that, aside from discussions about tactical moves, all Obama did to "get" him was give the army the go-ahead for the operation. > the guy who pushed for and signed a law that is as close to healthcare reform as anyone has gotten since Medicare was enacted almost 50 years ago Which was itself mostly a sleazy compromise like DADT, barely worth celebrating. --- Perhaps I was too hard on Obama. But his administration has been a failure on the whole, especially compared to the FDR-like, sweeping political moves promised during his election.

shadowfiend 15y ago
FDR-like, sweeping political moves require not only an FDR-like President, but a corresponding Congress and popular support. For reference, FDR won 57% of the popular vote, while Obama got 52%. And when things didn't immediately improve after the 1932 election, the Democrats maintained their majority in 1934. Compare the dominance here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1932prescountymap.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1932prescountymap.PNG to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008prescountymap.PNG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2008prescountymap.PNG In short, the circumstances of the times did not allow for the kind of complete shift that the Great Depression triggered.
wtracy 15y ago
Obama deserves credit for giving the army the resources needed to catch bin Laden. Under Bush, most of those resources were diverted to Iraq. At the moment, this is the only relevant article that Google is pulling up for me: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/05/03/163155/bush-did-not-catch-bin-laden/ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/05/03/163155/bush-did... (I know how sketchy a news source called "thinkprogress.org" looks--if you care enough to want a more reputable citation, you'll need to dig a little more on your own.)

city41 15y ago

He could have vetoed NDAA. He could have not extended the Patriot Act. Those are decisions he alone made. They are solely on him and no one else. If he was one tenth what he said he would be, he would have made the right decision.

strobgot5 15y ago

The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient. He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever. Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed"a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes. http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/ http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_pau...