Frankly, I don't get this current meme that Obama is just as bad as Bush...

[MrScorpio]

Or that he's even worse.

But yet, I get the feeling that a few posters REALLY feel that way around here. For whatever reason? Who knows.

All I can say is that, not supporting the Democrats this November is the best way to make sure in knowing if President Obama is just like the Republicans.

Of course, that's NOT a scenario that I would support or expect ONE IOTA.

But I wonder, if that's the underlying message being delivered when people so readily equate him with the GOPers?

[scheming daemons]

1. Mostly done by trolls and ex-Naderites.... nobody seriously believes that

...and if they do, they need their heads examined.

[geek tragedy]

2. +1. nt

[EFerrari]

10. Actually, the equation is being made by Obama loyalists

not Tariq Ali or his readers. Ali is comparing policies, not people. So yeah, heads could usefully be examined.

[leftstreet]

20. [phone]x10

Thank you!

DU has become unreadable lately with all this passive aggressive crap.

Think I'll go play tetris

[Canuckistanian]

49. +1000

Well said

[zipplewrath]

3. A quote would help

I mostly see that expressed either on a specific issue, or as a bit of hyperbole. Always? No, but that's the vast majority.

[Greyhound]

4. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

Well since there's no alternative I guess this doesn't really hurt that much.

[sufrommich]

5. I doubt the people equating Obama with Bush are Democrats,

or ever have been.

[LoZoccolo]

6. It's easy manipulation and "working the refs".

People figure it costs them nothing to try to get the administration scared that there will be a "progressive" splinter at the ballot box, so they get on the Internet and create the impression that there are a lot of people who'll throw a fit and vote third party. I think they see it as a way of getting something by doing almost nothing; you don't even have to leave your house.

[LoZoccolo]

15. P.S. It's annoying and distracts the people who actually do want to work to get things done. n/t

[Marr]

7. Many of Obama's policies are indistinguishable from those of GW Bush.

That doesn't mean he's "just as bad" in general.

However, I do think that some of Obama's biggest fans are "just as bad" as GW Bush's biggest fans in terms of rhetoric. This sort of black and white mischaracterization of all criticism is something both groups seem to do very easily.

[NNN0LHI]

18. Just who are those biggest GW Bush's fans you bring up though?

GW Bush once had a +90% approval rating as I recall. Those one time big GW Bush fans are all around us.

Don

[Uzybone]

8. Its madness

nothing else.

[EFerrari]

9. It's just sloppy thinking.

The current discussion began with a thread about Tariq Ali's new book which compares Bush's policies and especially his war policies, with Obama's.

That's been schlepped into "Tariq Ali equates Obama with Bush", something he obviously doesn't do or he would have no book. Something that obvious wouldn't be a book.

But the Thought Crime Police have decided it's more useful to turn DU against a potentially important critique of the war and totalize it into an attack on the person of the president, which is is not.

Defending Obama is somewhat easier here than thinking about the war so, it's not very surprising, really.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. As they say, link please...

It is absurd to ponder the underlying message of a message that is not quoted. What you are doing is writing the text, attributing it to unnamed others, then questioning the meaning hidden in your own damn words. It is surreal.

[LoZoccolo]

14. Quit trying to get people to break the rules. n/t

[Bluenorthwest]

41. What?

The man writes words, ascribes them to others, and then asks that we look for hidden meanings in his own words. Absurd. I'd just like him to acknowledge that which he is doing.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. Link?

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Never said he was as bad as Bush, but he doesn't hold a candle to

Obama the Candidate.

[muffin1]

46. + a brazllion n/t

[SargeUNN]

16. It is how they look at things

too many want to feel mad at the powers that be and therefore they just dwell on the negative and find a way to ignore the progress. They are not going to support anyone because they like feeling sorry for themselves or living in a fantasy world where reality only intrudes when it suits them.

[EFerrari]

17. Who are you talking about, exactly?

[MrScorpio]

19. It's just a general observation from a review of thread subjects

And the underlying popularity for threads that make that kind of comparison.

I see it as a trend.

[EFerrari]

21. I was asking Sarge. But, thanks for the explanation.

The thing is, every president is compared to his predecessor. That's just what we do as a culture. That isn't the same as the Nader equation.

And yet, the comparisons are being collapsed into that equation. Just about any idea at DU can be discounted by claiming it equates Obama with Bush. Which is not great for DU as it has been a leader in considering and distributing ideas and information.

What it boils down to is, what kind of a DU do you want.

edit: whichery

[MrScorpio]

25. The last thing that I want is GOP-like "message discipline"

We're the real big tent party and we all have as many opinions as we have elbows.

We really aren't being true to ourselves IF we don't criticize the things that we see wrong with the Democrats.


But, I see our issues as issues that belong to DEMOCRATS alone. Calling Dems "Republican lite" is just plain lazy.

As far as the comparisons are concerned, it's just silly not to understand that not all laws and policies would be reversed, just because a new president takes office. Especially, without taking into consideration all of the potential political, legal and policy based ramifications of various subjects.

Things can't be explained away so easily and apoplexy is poor way to communicate when discussing these things.

[EFerrari]

27. So, lazy, silly, easy and apoplectic is how you see

comparisons of Bush and Obama's polcies? Is that fair?

[MrScorpio]

28. It's got nothing to do with being fair

Fairness would dictate that I give people who make incorrect assessments, by way of their biases, the benefit of the doubt.

On one hand, as you said before, all presidents are compared to their predecessors, of course, as it should be, but up to a certain point. However, many comparisons are made out of context, and the reason for this is that a lot of people totally misread the concept of continuity of government. It's not hard to distinguish Democratic rationales from Republican ones, only if people are willing to scratch the surface to get real answers.

As far as the use of apoplexy, the message is totally clear. People who fall into that behavior want nothing more than to shut down the communication process and bully the discussion. These people pretty much can't deal with rational debate.

[EFerrari]

31. "It's not hard to distinguish Democratic rationales from Republican ones"

if those are your binary choices. But it's pretty easy to shove people who are thinking about the war, for example, into that binarism if that's what you do reflexively.

[MrScorpio]

35. There's an easy way to work this out.

If Carter, Clinton or Obama were in the Oval Office between 2001 and 2003, would they use the same rationales, advisors and strategies that Bush used for his wars?

There's not too many people who could say that they would.

[EFerrari]

44. But you're still making this about personalities and not issues.

Aren't you?

[SargeUNN]

22. some of my listeners were bad about this

I had one that when he called he went on for minutes on how bad Obama was and how much like Bush he is. When I would remind him of some the things I knew he was for that Obama got passed he blew it off and continued on telling me how Obama was Bush all over. Later at a gathering I talked to him and found out that he had voted for Hillary and didn't like Obama and also admitted to me he was one that just couldn't help but focus on the negative because positive was not as depressing.

[EFerrari]

23. Gotcha. Most people have their own agenda/priorities

so it's a good thing to try to focus on the facts they bring.

[MrScorpio]

26. Yep, the party's over and some people just need to move on.

Heck, I was an Edwards guy, but when Obama became the nominee, I put away any intra-party partisanship

[JNelson6563]

29. Sadly they often don't bring any.facts with them, just hyperbole.

[EFerrari]

34. This "they" you refer to must be the same "naive fools"

who don't judge Ali's book by its cover as you did?

lol

[JNelson6563]

50. There are some positive posts about Obama this morning

Seems to me your efforts are needed elsewhere. Run along now.

Julie

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

32. Too bad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp_6k-mdNT0

[Hell Hath No Fury]

30. Mr Scorpio --

I spent a long time documenting Bush & Co. in the run-up to the 2004 election for my old website DoYouKnow.org -- through that process I became educuated at a micro level of all he and his crew had been up to.

Sadly, Obama has continued along the very same path as the Bush crew on too many issues, primarily around privacy, detainees, and security. It is deeply, deeply disturbing to me that this is being done by him, and I spent too long fighting Bush when he was doing it to now roll over just because it is being done by a Democrat. :(

The ACLU and other domenstic and foreign civil rights groups have been all over this story, but too many have turned a blind eye out of loyalty to the man and/or the Party.

And I will add I did not vote for Ralph Nader, I am not a PUMA, nor am I a troll. I am just a person who believes something are right and somethings are wrong, no matter who does them.

[MrScorpio]

37. I don't know why so many people are upset because Obama defers to prior polices

Or so it seems.

Let's figure this one out. We've got a man who's only been in office for two years. Yet, he's expected to reverse the GOP policies of a Congress that enacted so many of them since the Nineties and thirty years of Republican presidents. He can only do so much.

Why is so hard to see that he's picking some battles now and holding off on others for a later time?

He's got a recalcitrant Congress to deal with and a very fickle electorate who's never happy. It's no surprise that so many unhappy people are running around. If their agenda doesn't get first priority, then they're going to antsy.

Hey, so what can he do... Expend all of his political capital to reverse every single GOP inspired policy right now? Use executive power as much as he can, even if the judicial and legislative processes are ongoing? Disregard proper procedure for the sake of expedience?

That's what a lot of people sound like they're saying to me.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

39. I am talking about the BAD shit --

like spying on Americans, torture, assassination, mercs, contractor corruption -- those are all things he has had the ability to challenge from day one, and he has either fiddled around the edges or, worse, expanded the bad.

I am not one of those who thinks he has some magical wand to make everything better with a wave, but between being Commander in Chief and having a Justice Department, he has had able opportunity and time to change some of the truly evil shit we have been engaged in. Or to change directions. Example: How did he handle the overthrow of a duly elected President in Honduras? Like ol' Ronnie Raygun would have. Deciding our reaction to that coup was something within his purview to and he went old-school anti-Latin America on us. :(

[MrScorpio]

40. Well, it's time like this that I defer to Chomsky

That, regardless of whoever is running the US Government, shit like that is going to happen.

And we should never forget that the greatest danger Bush created was the establishment of bad precedent.

And when the bad things do eventually happen, how accessible and receptive of properly extended criticism?

By all means, hold Obama's feet to the fire.

But when those who say that he's just like Bush are just not seeing the potential for change and the will to make it happen.

[JVS]

54. I doubt Chomsky said that as a way for people to justify the continuation of such things.

[MrScorpio]

58. No, he doesn't

But rather as a way of saying that there are some basic problems with the way that American governments operate, regardless what ever party is in control of them.

[McCamy Taylor]

33. It's an RNC campiagn slogan. The people who post it are the ones who believe it least.

They just loved Bush.

[Stinky The Clown]

36. I don't normally do this, but I am going to unrec your thread

A post was put up citing an interview that Amy Goodman did with some guy who wrote a book that can be construed as comparing - maybe equating - Obama to bush.

I need to interject here: I have never heard the sound of Amy Goodman's voice. I know of her only from cites on DU. I have never even heard of this Tariq guy. Ever. I didn't read the whole interview and i have no plans to read his book. It appears to be about an opinion that I don't share. That said, reading opinions by *anyone* should be encouraged, not discouraged. Only after reading it might one know for sure if agrees with it or not. If one chooses not to read it, than one is ignorant on the totality of it.

I will plead to willful ignorance of the man's opinion.

All that behind us, I really don't see this as some big meme. The idea of Obama being bush or even being worse than bush, has been around for a while. The same people, for the most part, who subscribed to that opinion then subscribe to it now. The only difference is that it is once again in the news. Or at least in the DU news. Its not a growing trend.

But making it an issue, as you did, incites angry debate as some people can take your thread as a call-out, even though they don't subscribe to the idea. They are honest Obama critics who - usually justifiably - feel that they get lumped in with the crazy critics.

DUWorld has become far too black and white to allow for much in the way of nuance. Its mostly Sharks and Jets of late. This doesn't help. And your exhortation feels accusatory, not conciliatory. As we head into the midterms, that's really unhelpful.

Again, I don't normally consider your threads worthy of my unrecs, but this one is an exception.

[MrScorpio]

38. You already know me.

If people are wont to disagree with me, I don't mind that one bit.

Tone, for me is much more important, as a facts.

AS long we discuss whatever rationally, I'm totally fine with disagreements.

[Stinky The Clown]

43. I do, indeed, know you

And I respect you.

[Bluenorthwest]

56. Well rationality requires actual information, not implications

I had no idea what you were reffering to, I asked you for that information, and you did not reply. Now that I know what your 'rational' post was talking about, my response would be that one man's opinion in a book he's hawking is not a 'meme' unless you and others make it such, which would probably please the author, bottom line wise. Look up what 'meme' actually means. It does not mean 'one guy's opinion'.
You did not even cite the author or the book, did not even say it was a book. You assigned one man's opinion to a large and unspecified group of people other than that man, whom you did not cite in any way.
My original question to you was how can you discuss the underlaying meanings of a statement that has not been quoted? Your OP was not rational at all. You characterize unquoted and unsourced words, then ask that the subtext of your own text be examined for further crimes by the unquoted and unamed 'meme' makers'. Cowardly, and far, far from the realm of reason.

[MrScorpio]

57. Care to throw a few more epithets in there?

Looks like you missed a few.


By the way, I'm not making this about calling other DUers out.

It seems that other posters are quite aware of what I'm talking about. Whether you agree or disagree with me (that's totally up to you), I believe that I've stated my point with sufficient clarity.

[EFerrari]

48. If you don't know who Amy is, you should. It's a good story.

In 1991 Amy and her reporter partner went over to cover the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and she almost got her brains blown out. That's not hyperbole. The gun was to her head. Two weeks before, 2 Aussie journalists had been executed a la Danny Pearl. They almost killed Allen Nairn when he covered her. They bashed his skull in pretty good but he lived anyway.

So, when she got home, instead of finding a safer way to make a living, she doubled down. I think she worked at Pacifica for a while and then she started Democracy Now! because she realized that she had almost been killed by weapons US tax dollars had paid for and with the full blessing of our government.

If you didn't see Amy's reporting from Haiti during the week the Pentagon was saying it was too dangerous, you have to. She went all over the place without any problem. That's how she rolls.

I don't think that she does political parties at all although she is clearly on the left.

[DCBob]

42. They have an agenda..

and its not working.

[apocalypsehow]

45. That's why I had to take a sabbatical from DU for awhile - the shrillest anti-Obama voices here, a

tiny minority, were sucking up 50% of the oxygen. I was starting to see OP's that resembled the kind of crap you'd expect at Freeperville, or worse.

Edit: typo.

[ProSense]

47. Because repeating a meme means it's true

Just keep repeating:

Obama better do something or he's a one-term President

Obama is a failure

Obama is a conservative

Obama isn't a good communicator

Obama isn't a leader

Obama isn't a progressive

Repeating these often makes them true.


If the President said "the sky is blue," the responses would be:

Pftt, it's raining in my neighborhood.

Blue skies aren't a good thing when people are experiencing a drought.

Notice that he didn't say what shade of blue?

:rofl:

[RaleighNCDUer]

51. Republican sound-bite tactics.

When DEMOCRATS say those things, we tend to do so with nuance and caveats.

IF the pullout of Iraq is not well on its way to completion by elections time, Obama will be a one term president.

Judging by the goals he himself set out in his campaign, Obama is a failure. (followed by enumerating the failure to overturn DADT, DOMA, close Gitmo, etc.)

Obama is the most conservative Democratic president in the past 100 years. (prove me wrong - that doesn't mean he is equivalent to a Republican, unless maybe you're talking Olympia Snow).

"Obama isn't a good communicator." Now, you're just making shit up. If there's one thing everybody is agreed on he is a 1st rate communicator - his speeches are tours de force 99% of the time, he excels in one-on-one communication - except for a few people who expect the slickness of a TV talking head, who are bothered by placeholding 'um's, I've heard NOBODY say he isn't a good communicator.

"Obama isn't a leader." I'd say he doesn't embrace a leadership role - he's more an administrator type. He certainly isn't getting out there and twisting arms to get recalcitrant dems to back progressive platforms - if he had pushed for single payer, we might have a public option in the HCR bill today, but he was worried more about how it would look to broach an idea and have it fail so he compromised from the git go - that's real leadership.

And so on and so on...

Memes, like stereotypes, exist because there is a core of truth to them, and like stereotypes, they are shorthand for the reality.

BTW, Obama is not a progressive. Progressives fight for their ideals. Compromising is not a fighting style.

[LiberalAndProud]

52. Maybe the most lasting damage of the Bush legacy is that the bar has been set so low.

It isn't that I believe that Obama is worse than or even as bad as Bush. He isn't, by any stretch of the imagination.

My heartache is borne of the fact that we Democrats, as a party, are not nearly as good as we should be. How low must we go, really?

I agree that the alternative is not acceptable. There is very little ground left to cede, though. My threshold may be higher than others', but the party should make no mistake that they can reach ideological territory that is simply not acceptable, no matter how detestable the opposition may be in comparison.

[mstinamotorcity]

53. Its usually when some factions inside

the party don't get the particular legislation they want or feel as though the President caved in on some issues that they felt were important. And its some troll activity. They are invading Democratic sites ever since our President has taken office. They have a divide and conquer attitude that has one them seats in congress and legislational benefits.Which all leads back to the 2% folks.And even though every Dem doesn't always agree with everything the President does we at least know that most of what he does is what he can get votes for to pass. That's why it is incumbent for us to make sure he has the correct pieces of legislation to sign. If we want a bill that is not watered down then we need to put Democrats in office who are not watered down (i.e. Blanche Lincoln). The Tea Party is crazy but they will stand up for crazy. The Democratic Party need to stand up for intelligence,integrity,and responsibility.and be willing to get out there and demand it.

[AngryAmish]

55. Agreed. He has done more to close Gitmo than any president since Bush