Looking back to November 2008...

[MessiahRp]

Tell me, Did you think you were electing a President who:

-Would continue the Afghanistan War (despite evidence that there really isn't any al-Qaeda there) and retain 50,000 troops in Iraq beyond his first term? (Word coming out was that the Pentagon will be getting an extension to continue Afghanistan well beyond this year's deadline).

-Would pass a Health Care Reform bill that was a major giveaway to health insurance companies and had ZERO public option plans to compete with and force the costs down of the greedy HMOs who broke the health care system in the first place.

-Would not go after War Crimes from the Bush Administration even after clear on the record admissions of guilt.

-Would continue to approve of and expand illegal wiretapping of ALL Americans.

-Would pass continued tax cuts of the obscenely wealthy even though the economy is in freefall and unemployment numbers just continue to get worse.

-Would the agree to lower estate taxes helping keep the obscenely rich's undeserving family members far more obscenely rich than they should be allowed to be.

-Would not fight (at all) to repeal DADT. (In fact his Administration fought against it's repeal in court) Wouldn't even bother to begin to fight for START or the DREAM acts.

-Advocates for yet another NAFTA-like free trade agreement, even after we saw the disaster of the last one.

-Appoints a Commission made up of mostly Republicans to basically advocate for the "reform" aka destruction of Social Security.

-Attacks the Democratic Base constantly. Blames them for everything. Kisses Republican ass at every turn, no matter how batshit crazy their demands are.



Yeah, neither did I.

Here's hoping for a legitimate primary challenge in 2012. If I wanted a Republican, I would vote for one. At least if it were one of them in office doing this shit, their party would get the blame for it and the American people would vote them out en masse the next election cycle. Instead it's us getting blamed for it and rightfully so when Obama so willingly concedes every time they want something. Enough of this. 8 years of Bush was enough.

Rp

[KansasVoter]

1. I thought about this today. How sad and disappointed I am .

[leftstreet]

2. Does anyone else wonder what Ted Kennedy would think of all this?

:shrug:

His endorsement was a pivotal point for Obama

[Riley18]

7. Yes, I thought of him today. How disappointed he would have been.

[doc03]

3. A total disappointment. Wow I noticed today how Obama has

aged in two years, on one of the news shows they showed him making his broken promise to rescind the tax cuts on the rich during his campaign. I swear he looks ten years older.

[RKP5637]

10. I noticed that too, really aged. Some others remarked similar. It's a hell of a

horrible job to have IMO. Here is the problem IMO, he had zillions of people with him when elected. If he had driven a stake in the ground, and not dribbled around, the populace of the US would have backed and backed him - now, I think a lot of people are getting confused with him and the spirit of the moment in 2008 has pretty well drained.

I think he had it all. IMO the democrats have blown it, almost all of them. I feel abandoned and I'm a moderate... or at least what used to be a moderate at one time.

[Taverner]

4. Don't forget - Iraq is still going on too

[MessiahRp]

15. Didn't forget and duly noted.

That's why I mentioned the 50,000 remaining troops. That is not pulling out in even the loosest sense of the term.

Rp

[RKP5637]

5. I would vote differently in the 2008 primary today ...

[Milo_Bloom]

12. Other than DK, who would have been different?

Do you honestly believe Clinton, Dodd or Edwards would have triangulated less (given their senate voting history?)

I fear that other than DK, there were no viable options.

[RKP5637]

13. I like DK, but felt Cinton was more electable, but felt Clinton was DLC. I went with

Obama because of his popularity and charisma and the talk of change and all.

[MessiahRp]

16. I mentioned it at the time but 2008 was a horrible crop of candidates...

Remember the media spin... "This is the strongest field of candidates in decades for the Democratic Party!"... *cough* bullshit *cough*

Really what they meant was that they were excited about how easy to control these candidates would be for corporations.

2004 was a million times better. I have said it a million times, John Kerry would be ten times the President that Obama is. He just didn't have Obama's gift of bullshitting.

Howard Dean would have been better than that entire field as well.

Incredibly sad to think of what we ended up getting instead.

Rp

[ProSense]

6. 1)

-Would continue the Afghanistan War (despite evidence that there really isn't any al-Qaeda there) and retain 50,000 troops in Iraq beyond his first term? (Word coming out was that the Pentagon will be getting an extension to continue Afghanistan well beyond this year's deadline).

Barack Obama campaigned on just that:

A Responsible, Phased Withdrawal
Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month -- which would remove all of them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 -- more than 7 years after the war began.

Under the Obama-Biden plan, a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. They will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.

link

•Afghanistan: Obama and Biden will refocus American resources on the greatest threat to our security -- the resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They will increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, press our allies in NATO to do the same, and dedicate more resources to revitalize Afghanistan’s economic development. Obama and Biden will demand the Afghan government do more, including cracking down on corruption and the illicit opium trade.

more

Opinions on health care differ. I did not expect a war crimes trial. He is fighting to repeal DADT.

[MessiahRp]

14. Dude, it must be hard carrying that much water...

I understand and appreciate your loyalty to the Democratic President but at what point do you finally allow your belief in principle to override your loyalty to a man?

Yes, we all knew they were going to do a surge in Afghanistan and escalate it a bit, but Obama himself set a 2011 drawdown date that he and his advisors are backing off of as the Pentagon fights for the war to continue into 2014. The intelligence is clear now. We cannot obtain our main target Osama Bin Laden there and al-Qaeda does not operate there. We are propping up a government largely unpopular with the people of Afghanistan which long term will likely create more terrorist sympathizers than anything.

Nobody expected a war crimes trial but nobody expected Bush, Cheney, et al. to proudly, openly trumpet an admission of war crimes either.

In these first two situations obviously the circumstances have changed on each. To campaign that we need a surge in 2008 is one thing but in 2010 when it's clear that our original mission cannot be carried out any further in that region, continuing to move forward on 2008 policy is hard headed ignorance. To campaign that war crimes are in the past as Obama tried to do is reckless, foolish and downright dismissive of the US Constitution.. but to do so in the face of blatant bragging about committing such crimes proves that this President is now complicit in allowing such illegality to continue.

Furthermore your argument that Obama is working to "repeal" DADT is a joke. His "fight" to repeal it so far consists of: a) using the DOJ to fight against it's repeal and against judges' rulings that override it as law, b) not using the power of a Presidential Order to authorize that the DOD not continue to enforce such policy, c) not fighting very hard to make sure that it is a top priority item included in any agreements made with Republicans, d) not pushing Senate Democrats to make it a priority.

Obama has shown zero willingness to move the needle one inch for DADT or for any sort of gay rights for that matter.

Rp

[Matariki]

8. I was thinking today about being downtown in dancing in the street on election night.

I never saw a reaction to an election like that in my life time. Everyone was so happy - it seemed it was going to be the end of all the Bush/Republican abuses.

It makes me very sad.

[ORDagnabbit]

9. Calling Bernie Sanders tomorrow and asking his Aide to tell him to Primary Obama as a team with Alan

Grayson as his VP pick.

[Milo_Bloom]

11. I feared it when he chose Biden as VP.

The fact that he could choose someone who so strongly supported the Iraq war and the Bankrupcy bill gave me serious pause.

[MessiahRp]

17. I thought he just picked him for "experience" and "foreign policy expertise"...

aka appeasing the idiots that were concerned that Obama didn't have a Washington elder insider on his ticket.

I didn't think Biden offered much. His one moment to shine was against Palin and he was too concerned with seeming mean to put the knife in her political career for good at that debate and here we are with that blustering moron still spouting off like she matters or something heading into 2012.

Rp