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You are being generous. Too generous. These are very, very high-spin bullet points and contrary analysis is easy. Let's try a few examples! (Disclaimer. These

You are being generous. Too generous. These are very, very high-spin bullet points and contrary analysis is easy. Let's try a few examples! (Disclaimer. These opinions are for sample use and being contrarian only. Seriously advancing these opinions is a legitimate thing, but the purpose of this post is not to advance them. They will not be defended if you reply.) Reduce dependence on foreign oil and gas? He's been against all sorts of oil projects and fracking from the moment he took office (although if you want to be pedantic Keystone is technically foreign oil). The mess around Gaddafi and Syria, and the troop withdrawals in Iraq, helped gave rise to ISIS/ISIL to begin with, and they're far from contained yet. NATO vs Russia has looked less like "shoring up" NATO and slowly weakening Putin than just letting Putin having his way with Ukraine (or "the Ukraine", if you're Putin). "Re-balance relation with Israel" could equally be construed as propping up Hamas and giving his blessing for Iran to build nuclear weapons. Re-establishing relations with Cuba is re-establishing relations with a totalitarian state and a bad idea! The environment deal will accomplish nothing in the end. (end sample opinions) I think there's a few too many caveats here, and that at best a few decades out we'll be looking at the Obama foreign-policy record as decidedly mixed.

secfirstmd 11y ago
Thanks for making the case for the opposition :)
pekk 11y ago
Fracking is at an all-time high and US oil production is higher than it's been for a while. Whether you are happy with oil prices or not, environmentalists will tell you it's blatantly dishonest to say "He's been against all sorts of oil projects and fracking." Most of this is US foreign policy which is not specific to Obama, it just represents continuity from Bush. It was our entry into Iraq which created enemies like ISIS, not the withdrawal from Iraq. Iraq was never going to be the 51st state. I agree that Putin has been allowed to do whatever he wants, but the clear start of that was the Georgia fiasco under Bush, and the unspoken alternatives are extremely unpleasant. I hate what happened to Ukraine, but I wouldn't personally die to fight Putin about Ukraine, so why should I volunteer our troops to die for that? Was that ever really an option? There is plenty of room to disagree about whether we should have been making deals with Iran and Cuba. If someone has an honestly favorable impression, it doesn't mean they have "very high-spin bullet points" but the arguments you've advanced are clearly dishonest.
- adventured 11y ago
  If anything, Obama has been almost entirely, intentionally neutral on fracking. He knows how important it has been to delivering a massive new source of domestic energy supply, including enabling natural gas to overtake coal. He has cleared not sicced his EPA on oil & gas companies heavily reliant on fracking, when he easily could have made their lives far more difficult.
  - norea-armozel 11y ago
    I think that's the only thing Obama has done good on since the Solyndra snafu. It's best the govt just foster a general policy of funding all domestic energy interests (fusion, solar, wind, oil, and etc) than just picking one clear winner. Stuff like grants for researching a new method of oil extraction is good, but giving a loan to an oil company to open a production quality well is not.
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  I doubt fracking will last if the techniques involved still require oil being near $100/barrel. That seems to be the sweet spot for starting up a new well. Plus, it seems there's more resistance to fracking in other states (outside of ND) since there's evidence of water pollution due to improper uses (Oklahoma has had some of its ground water sources polluted due to mismanagement and general idiocy). I doubt we'll see fracking last more than a decade in this country at this rate if companies can't follow the basic regulations on the matter, too.
mahranch 11y ago
> we'll be looking at the Obama foreign-policy record as decidedly mixed. Except his foreign policy doesn't exist in a vacuum and it's entirely subjective. Compared to Bush's 'big stick' foreign policy, for someone who doesn't live in the States, Obama truly is "change" personified. I was in Japan when Obama was elected for his first term and there were people literally in tears at finding out that Obama had won. You'll see a couple news reports and interviews on youtube where you'll see them saying "Yeah, we're happy he won." then they would repeat his slogans "Change!" and "Yes we can!". But I had a chance to speak to a bunch of those people due to the nature of my job and after some rather in-depth questions, they weren't in tears because Obama had won, they were in tears because they were happy McCain/Palin lost. They didn't want another "crazy" republican in office. It was actually a bit shocking to learn that people abroad follow our politics more closely than a good many of our citizens. And it was interesting to see that they consider democrats the level headed bunch, and the more 'peaceful' party. So I don't think they're a fan of Obama personally (though I'm sure some are), I think it's the fact that they prefer democratic foreign policy over republican foreign policy in general, and see republicans as war mongering neocons.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >And it was interesting to see that they consider democrats the level headed bunch, and the more 'peaceful' party. Well why wouldn't they? Just because Republicans run as the party of mature, responsible individuals who can see how liberal idealism sounds nice but will ultimately founder against the hard rocks of the real world doesn't mean that their real-world policy record bears out their propaganda. In fact, the Democrats are basically what most of the world considers responsible conservatives (eg: mature, responsible people who can see how idealism sounds nice but ultimately founders, and thus how stability is preferable above all else). The Republicans are considered far-right nationalists, warmongers, and religious crazies. >So I don't think they're a fan of Obama personally (though I'm sure some are), I think it's the fact that they prefer democratic foreign policy over republican foreign policy in general, and see republicans as war mongering neocons. Again: well yeah. Nixon went to China. Today's Republican foreign-policy establishment spent a lot of effort claiming that if we don't go to war with Iran, that if we in fact use diplomacy without invading, we're effectively Neville Chamberlain. They said exactly the same thing about Iraq, and look how that turned out. If you want a mature, responsible conservative, vote for the Democrats. If you want an actual left, vote Socialist. The Republicans have been far-right since Bush II.
SteveLAnderson 11y ago
You wrote, "the troop withdrawals in Iraq, helped gave rise to ISIS/ISIL to begin with," The troop withdrawal in Iraq was caused by an agreement signed between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. The Obama administration tried (some say not hard enough, but it cannot be denied that it tried) to extend the deadline negotiated by the Bush administration, but the Iraqi government denied the extension. If this is an example of "contrary analysis" you would have been better off sitting on your hands.

secfirstmd 11y ago

Thanks for making the case for the opposition :)

pekk 11y ago

Fracking is at an all-time high and US oil production is higher than it's been for a while. Whether you are happy with oil prices or not, environmentalists will tell you it's blatantly dishonest to say "He's been against all sorts of oil projects and fracking." Most of this is US foreign policy which is not specific to Obama, it just represents continuity from Bush. It was our entry into Iraq which created enemies like ISIS, not the withdrawal from Iraq. Iraq was never going to be the 51st state. I agree that Putin has been allowed to do whatever he wants, but the clear start of that was the Georgia fiasco under Bush, and the unspoken alternatives are extremely unpleasant. I hate what happened to Ukraine, but I wouldn't personally die to fight Putin about Ukraine, so why should I volunteer our troops to die for that? Was that ever really an option? There is plenty of room to disagree about whether we should have been making deals with Iran and Cuba. If someone has an honestly favorable impression, it doesn't mean they have "very high-spin bullet points" but the arguments you've advanced are clearly dishonest.

adventured 11y ago
If anything, Obama has been almost entirely, intentionally neutral on fracking. He knows how important it has been to delivering a massive new source of domestic energy supply, including enabling natural gas to overtake coal. He has cleared not sicced his EPA on oil & gas companies heavily reliant on fracking, when he easily could have made their lives far more difficult.
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  I think that's the only thing Obama has done good on since the Solyndra snafu. It's best the govt just foster a general policy of funding all domestic energy interests (fusion, solar, wind, oil, and etc) than just picking one clear winner. Stuff like grants for researching a new method of oil extraction is good, but giving a loan to an oil company to open a production quality well is not.
norea-armozel 11y ago
I doubt fracking will last if the techniques involved still require oil being near $100/barrel. That seems to be the sweet spot for starting up a new well. Plus, it seems there's more resistance to fracking in other states (outside of ND) since there's evidence of water pollution due to improper uses (Oklahoma has had some of its ground water sources polluted due to mismanagement and general idiocy). I doubt we'll see fracking last more than a decade in this country at this rate if companies can't follow the basic regulations on the matter, too.

mahranch 11y ago

> we'll be looking at the Obama foreign-policy record as decidedly mixed. Except his foreign policy doesn't exist in a vacuum and it's entirely subjective. Compared to Bush's 'big stick' foreign policy, for someone who doesn't live in the States, Obama truly is "change" personified. I was in Japan when Obama was elected for his first term and there were people literally in tears at finding out that Obama had won. You'll see a couple news reports and interviews on youtube where you'll see them saying "Yeah, we're happy he won." then they would repeat his slogans "Change!" and "Yes we can!". But I had a chance to speak to a bunch of those people due to the nature of my job and after some rather in-depth questions, they weren't in tears because Obama had won, they were in tears because they were happy McCain/Palin lost. They didn't want another "crazy" republican in office. It was actually a bit shocking to learn that people abroad follow our politics more closely than a good many of our citizens. And it was interesting to see that they consider democrats the level headed bunch, and the more 'peaceful' party. So I don't think they're a fan of Obama personally (though I'm sure some are), I think it's the fact that they prefer democratic foreign policy over republican foreign policy in general, and see republicans as war mongering neocons.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>And it was interesting to see that they consider democrats the level headed bunch, and the more 'peaceful' party. Well why wouldn't they? Just because Republicans run as the party of mature, responsible individuals who can see how liberal idealism sounds nice but will ultimately founder against the hard rocks of the real world doesn't mean that their real-world policy record bears out their propaganda. In fact, the Democrats are basically what most of the world considers responsible conservatives (eg: mature, responsible people who can see how idealism sounds nice but ultimately founders, and thus how stability is preferable above all else). The Republicans are considered far-right nationalists, warmongers, and religious crazies. >So I don't think they're a fan of Obama personally (though I'm sure some are), I think it's the fact that they prefer democratic foreign policy over republican foreign policy in general, and see republicans as war mongering neocons. Again: well yeah. Nixon went to China. Today's Republican foreign-policy establishment spent a lot of effort claiming that if we don't go to war with Iran, that if we in fact use diplomacy without invading, we're effectively Neville Chamberlain. They said exactly the same thing about Iraq, and look how that turned out. If you want a mature, responsible conservative, vote for the Democrats. If you want an actual left, vote Socialist. The Republicans have been far-right since Bush II.

SteveLAnderson 11y ago

You wrote, "the troop withdrawals in Iraq, helped gave rise to ISIS/ISIL to begin with," The troop withdrawal in Iraq was caused by an agreement signed between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. The Obama administration tried (some say not hard enough, but it cannot be denied that it tried) to extend the deadline negotiated by the Bush administration, but the Iraqi government denied the extension. If this is an example of "contrary analysis" you would have been better off sitting on your hands.