From Obama's Mouth

[lame54]

Obama: From His Infomercial

"I'm reminded every single day, that I am not a perfect man. I will not be a perfect president. But I can promise you this, I will always tell you what I think and where I stand; I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you when we disagree, and most importantly I will open the doors of government and ask you to be involved in your democracy again."

He's asking us to speak our minds - even if we disagree with him

[cali]

1. yep. but please note that no where has he ever said that all opinions

are valid or that he's obliged to follow any given opinion.

[lame54]

2. note that I never said that either

[Two Americas]

14. what does that have to do with the price of beans?

Who has claimed that "all opinions are valid" or that Obama is "obliged to follow any given opinion?"

[Triana]

3. YEP. All the griping on here also belongs on change.gov...

...he asked for input. It's been a LONG TIME since our gov't did that. We need to take advantage of it.

WE was the operative word in his campaign ("yes WE can"). He KNOWS *HE* is not the gov't. ALL OF US are the gov't. He also said:

"Change doesn't come FROM Washington. Change comes TO Washington."

Think about that. CHANGE.GOV <-- what dya suppose THAT's there for?

It's a conversation. A national meeting/convention that should never end, between the people and their gov't.

They won't necessarily adopt MY ideas or yours or everyone's who submits them. But they ASKED for our input. Knowing Obama, someone is reading it. He will ultimately do what he and his advisers (and WE are also his advisers) think is best.

So BE INVOLVED with YOUR Democracy again. Obama flung the doors open. Will you walk through?

[Posteritatis]

8. I wonder how many of the folks kvetching here have said a word there

Yes it's a new thing to get used to and all, but it's also precisely the sort of thing most people around here have wanted for eight years.

I keep getting tempted to go say stuff there, but I'm on the wrong side of the border so I don't particularly feel I have the right to. Bah.

[Triana]

13. Probably very few, compared to the number who are kvetching. n/t

[LWolf]

4. Words are fine.

Of course, when I sent him my thoughts, because I disagreed with him on an issue of primary importance to me, I got them back along with a note from one of his aides. They didn't deign to accept my attempt to communicate.

From where I sit, he's not listening. Unless it's to people who already support his agenda, or who are close enough to be brought into the fold, of course.

[Orrex]

5. I agree with you

His aides should have wrestled him to the ground and dragged him to a meeting with you so that you can speak your mind and have your ideas implemented verbatim. Anything less is fascism.

[lame54]

6. ...

:banghead:

[LWolf]

7. Actually,

if they had simply passed on my letter, rather than sending it back to me, that would have been enough.

I guess that, in your mind, anyone who actually expected that Obama would listen, when he made those humble remarks and invited us to communicate, expects a face to face meeting, because you obviously don't see any room between communication rejected before it ever reached him and complete capitulation on his part.

Either that, or you are just really bad at hyperbole, lol.

[Orrex]

9. Would you have preferred that they simply toss your letter in the garbage? How would you have known?

For dog's sake, the man was elected less than three weeks ago, and I suspect that he has a few things to get in order before he starts enacting the policies put forth by the famed politicial genius LWolf.

Did you really expect that any President-elect would read every missive sent to him? Even if that were all he did, there wouldn't be enough hours in the Presidency to get it done. But you've decided to get your nose out of joint because the man responsible for unfucking the country didn't draft a letter of thanks on golden stationary with ink distilled from unicorn tears.

Get over yourself. I would think that anyone with opposable thumbs would understand that "communicate" doesn't mean "send me your crazy suggestions, and I'll read each and every one of them." He's one man leading 300 million; what sort of communication were you hoping for?

I may be bad at hyperbole, but you've got a really bizarro grasp of the constraints of reality. Good luck to you.

[LWolf]

10. Two points:

1. I would expect that my communication would be read, and responded to. By someone. It wasn't. It was returned by an aide. The original communication was returned.

2. No, I wouldn't expect that communications would be trashed. Politicians have staff to send out form letters patronizing individual letter writers, to make them think that their thoughts are heard and appreciated. It's standard procedure. I don't think returning original communications, not accepting them, is standard procedure.

Those two points trump all of your passionate hyperbole, which is irrelevant to my point.

The man offered up some humble words, and a humble offer to listen, as posted by the OP. The words were false, as I discovered concretely the first time I took him at his word. That's my point.

[Orrex]

11. Tell you what: why don't you post your letter so that we can all share in your wisdom?

1. Send it back when he's President. Right now it is presumptuous of you to demand a hearing when there are frankly more pressing matters to be addressed. And you don't get to decide who'll respond to your letter, or how they'll reply. You're lucky to have gotten it back at all. I would have expected a form letter saying "thanks for your message" while your original was thrown into a shredder.

2. So what you're asking is for a bit of ego stroking to make you feel like the super-important center of the world. Well, buy a Golden Retriever, and you'll have that.


You're either being deliberately obtuse or childishly stubborn. Or both. Obama was not speaking to you. He was speaking to us. Individual communications were not guaranteed a response or even a reading.

Good luck with the Retriever.

[LWolf]

12. I probably will.

I've worked 60 hours in the 5 days since I received it; I haven't yet started a post about it. I'll probably get that done within the next few days.

1. If what you say is true, that it's presumptuous to expect Obama to listen to those who contact him (far different than "demanding a hearing,") then why did Obama make the statement linked in the OP?

2. No, what I'm looking for is some authenticity. A politician who says, "I will listen to you when we disagree, and most importantly I will open the doors of government and ask you to be involved in your democracy again," ought to listen when people take him at his word and attempt to communicate.

[Orrex]

15. Go on with your bad self