The puzzle of Barack Obama.

[kentuck]

Everyone is scratching their heads and their asses, trying to figure out what this guy stands for? Is he a progressive? Is he a moderate centrist? Is he a left centrist? Is he a right centrist? Is he a Republican? Nobody has yet figured it out.

But he has stated on numerous occasions that he will use the ideas, Democratic or Republican, that he thinks will work best to solve the problems. He is pragmatic, they say. He is not a partisan politician.

The problem that is so befuddling is that when he weighs these ideas for merit, he tends to lean to the conservative solutions. On jobs, on healthcare, on taxbreaks, on trade, etc. He seems to believe more in the conservative arguments than he does in the progressive or Democratic arguments. That is why people are scratching their heads.

From day one, with the hiring of the former head of the New York Federal Reserve to fill the Treasury position, we have seen the political philosophy of Barack Obama in action. With the way he has handled the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places, we have seen a right-wing policy in action. As with Guantanamo and the continuing policies of George W Bush. As with his statements that there would be no WPA-type programs and that he would be open to cutting Social Security and Medicare. He gave a green light to the right-wingers in the present Congress.

But he is a Democrat. He was a community organizer in Chicago. He was an admirer of Ronald Reagan and actually took a book about Ronald Reagan to read on his vacation once upon a time. He is not your commonplace Democrat, that is for sure.

Unfortuantely, or maybe fortunately, he has been put into a position where he needs Democrats to continue being the President of the United States. There are Congressmen and Senators that are just as confused by this enigma as you. They are torn about what is the best thing to do? Do they support Barack Obama, the moderate conservative, against their better wishes, or do they let a right-wing nut take over the Presidency?

It is a terrible predicament for a Party to be in, especially at such a critical time in our history. The only solutions we can look for in the near future are conservative solutions and we know from the last 10 years of history how that will likely turn out?

It is understandable why people are so confused.

[Fumesucker]

1. Some of us see a book about Reagan as a cautionary tale..

Others more as an instruction manual.

I suspect Obama falls more in the latter camp.

[patrice]

8. 1+ :-(((

[TwilightGardener]

11. My sense of his admiration of Reagan was not so much in admiration of Reagan's policies, but

in his style of being able to effect change and influence others--basically, in his ability to fulfill his agenda.

[patrice]

64. I do believe that over-all Obama is a process guy, so our problem is HOW to become a legitimate part

of the process. I'm sorry so many translate that to evil-compromise; that's not my personal experience of the phenomenology to which I refer.

Our tasks are to BE who/what we authentically are AND to get to the table. If we become a functional force, we CANNOT be denied, but we can't do that with reflex reactions to hot-buttons and by substituting cliches for actual thought AND BOTH SIDES IN THIS QUESTION ***ARE*** DOING THOSE THINGS.

My background has lead me to the perception that functionality is a factor of being able to weigh BOTH perspectives honestly, point-for-point, something you almost NEVER see around the DU.

[Fumesucker]

82. Did you miss the thread about the Obama proposal that people on unemployment work free?

That could easily have come from the mouth of the Gipper, I have no problem imagining it at all.

[patrice]

86. You know what? My daughter who is a liberal as it gets & owns her own business does that all of the

time. It's called marketing & development.

Interns also do it too in order to find their way in a professional field.

YES. Some people in that situation would just be SLAVES, but depending upon the terms of an individual deal and the extent to which individual workers would have control over those terms, SOME people might actually consider it a benefit.

Can I see that link, please? I'd like to understand a little more about this idea.

[Fumesucker]

87. There's several threads on it, here's one..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1863174

Anyone can walk in anywhere and offer to work for free, we really don't need a government program to do that.

Every time I've ever tried that the people have looked at me like I was nuts..

Perhaps desperation makes you look a little crazy?

[patrice]

88. Thanks.

:hi:

[patrice]

90. Looks as though a program like that needs somekind of criteria by means of which

the unemployed can INDEPENDENTLY assess what kind of situation it is and, hence, prospects for it turning into something more beneficial to the worker, like freelancing professionals do in deciding what the potential of a situation is.

It would be good if they were real strict criteria too, things like: overall CEO compensation:workers-pay+benefits; anonymized random performance reviews of existing employees, both management and workforce . . . I mean, wouldn't there be lots of competition for free employees? Isn't a free employee risking their own capital, the FREE real value that they bring to an enterprise? I don't think really high standards are too much to expect from employers when they are benefiting so much at the expense of another.

Probably won't happen, but that kind of info would be my criteria.

[Fumesucker]

91. Every single time I've done something for free to try and "get my foot in the door" somewhere..

It has ended badly..

The thing about being unemployed is that you get desperate very quickly and it shows in every potential situation you become involved in that might lead to making some money.

I had an OP up about one of my experiences not that long ago.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x291643

[TwilightGardener]

2. Overall, his record is more progressive than conservative. What more do you need to know?

[Mr Deltoid]

46. The 'conservative' parts do great harm to our country

[TwilightGardener]

47. He's not a pure progressive. And even if he was, pure progressivism

won't pass Congress. He falls short of the left's ideal, but he's not a rightie either.

[kentuck]

49. You say that with such assuredness...

as if only pure conservatism is the only thing people will accept?

[TwilightGardener]

51. Hell no--keep your government hands off my Medicare, sonny! They don't want

pure conservatism, either. They want mostly Dem-championed policies, but want this stuff to come from an old kindly white Republican guy. They want fiscal conservatism on stuff that affects only other people. That's where I think much of America's heads are at.

[Mr Deltoid]

54. His economics are rightie

Show me something in his econmics that is progressive? I am talking about actions, not words.

No legislation is better than ruinous legislation.

[TwilightGardener]

55. The stimulus was not rightie. Not pure lefty, especially with the tax breaks and the

size of it...but no, not rightie either. Payroll tax breaks are not rightie, they put money into the hands of the "wrong" people. Unemployment benefit extensions...not rightie.

[Mr Deltoid]

57. Half of the stimulus was ruinous GOP tax cuts and what remained was too small, as per GOP demands

Payroll tax cut drains SS. Unemployment extension cost two additional years of ruinous supply side RW economics (more Bush).

Obama lets the GOP ruin everything in the name of 'compromise.'

[Zorra]

94. Conservative = Chronic Epic Fail

[nenagh]

3. kentuck, at the very least...

doesn't he need to hire some strong, media-savvy Democrats, to represent him on TV?

It seems to me that TV talking heads speak to insiders in the WH.. and then Chuck Todd gives his opinion on it all..

Pres Obama seems so alone, and at times so exhausted...

[kentuck]

5. Whose fault is that?

Who asked him to hire all those Republicans to advise him? He has isolated himself.

[nenagh]

9. You are right, whose fault is that for hiring Republicans around him..

I was thinking of when W, or maybe his Dad, arranged a stronger team around Bush..

But as you say, if Pres Obama chooses Republicans to be around him.. then mixed messages probably are the result.

[TwilightGardener]

14. How many Republicans are really advising him? What is the count?

Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, that Daley guy, Susan Rice...all Democrats. His financial team might have some R's, but I see that Goolsbee is a Dem and Geithner is an Indie.

[kentuck]

27. "Geithner is an Indie" ?

Don't make me laugh! He was the head of the New York Federal Reserve. That is as corporate as you can get.

Let's not forget that he kept Bob Gates on at Defense and also General Petraeus in charge of the wars. Panetta was a former Republican. Hillary Clinton supported Richard Nixon in her younger days so she is more conservative than some people will admit. Daley is an outright corporatist and in no way could be defined as a Democrat. Some of the lesser people in his Administration are Democrats, I have no doubt, but they are followers. They do what they are told.

[TwilightGardener]

29. That's what his Wiki page says. Bob Gates did not run the DoD in a partisan way.

He was very competent, and overall I'm glad Obama kept him on. Petraeus--also not partisan, as far as I can tell. He's a General, his answer will always be More War, it's his hammer for his world of nails. What you are saying, then, is that you believe he hasn't surrounded himself with people who aren't liberal enough, but that's not the same thing as saying he's being advised by Republicans.

[banned from Kos]

35. you need to examine what you mean by "corporatist"

Most Democrats are NOT hostile to corporations. That view is restricted to some blogs and Green Party types.

The large majority of Democrats want corporations regulated but wish them well and to be profit positive too. Buffett is a loyal Democrat and is not hostile to corporations much like 50 million other Obama voters.

[TwilightGardener]

37. Thanks for that. No one will be President who is anti-corporate or anti-capitalist.

It will not happen. They will not be able to get elected.

[kentuck]

38. Yes, and you can be pro-corporate and pro-labor at the same time.

Not!

[TwilightGardener]

41. There has to be a balance. You can argue that Obama leans too much

toward defending the corporate rather than labor, Repubs will argue that it's exactly the opposite. But no, an openly anti-business, anti-capitalist President won't get elected.

[Claudia Jones]

42. exactly

It is like being pro-slavery and pro-Abolition at the same time. (Many Whigs tried that, claiming that "unity" was most important, and that the Whigs were "better than the alternative," and claimed that Abolitionists were "negative" and "dividing the party" and "helping the opposition.")

[Claudia Jones]

40. that's odd

First, we should be talking about the people in the country, not "Democrats." Secondly, the corporations have most definitely declared war on the everyday people. Can there be any doubt about that? Yes, some "Democrats," the ones who have gained control over the party, have sided against the everyday people and with the corporations, and that is the main reason that the Republicans are able to woo people to vote for them and the main reason for failures by the Democratic party.

How can any Democrat not[/i be hostile to what corporations are doing to the people around the world and the environment? Who is dividing the party? Those siding with the corporations, or those siding with the victims of the corporations? Corporations already have a party promoting their interests - the Republicans. If you demand that we all support corporations, if you applaud Democrats for promoting the interests of corporations, how can you then wonder that many of us are disaffected?

[kentuck]

43. Too much common sense for some to grasp...

After all, those corporations have so many voters supporting them that Democrats don't have a chance if they speak up against the evils of corporations.

[banned from Kos]

45. Corporations run the gamut of the political spectrum just like people do

Good corporations like Google, Starbucks, Progressive Insurance, Disney, treat their employees well, don't need unions, and are populated with lots of liberals.

Contrast with coal miners, utilities, meat-packers, Wal-Mart, and others who are looking to squeeze their employees, shift their costs to taxpayers, and break unions.

Talking about "pro-corporation" is vague and unproductive. Look how ofter the shady corporations (Koch) side with the GOP.

[Claudia Jones]

50. not true

It would have been equally true to have said (and many did back at the time) that "slave plantations run the gamut of the political spectrum just like people do."

All corporations side with their own interests, and they have political representation in the form of the Republican party. We, as Democrats, side with the general public and the working people or we are no different than Republicans.

Corporations are "good" or run PR campaigns to portray themselves as "good" when and only when that enhances the bottom line. The people running corporations have no choice about that, because if they do not do that their competition will and they will lose.

To claim that the interests of the owners and management are the same as, or even compatible with, the interests of Labor and the everyday people is to promote a key right wing theme.

"Critics of the critics" are trying to have it both ways, and that will never work. You cannot expect to simultaneously say that the Democratic party is or should be conservative, and then turn around and demand that all of us get in line. Pick one. You can't have both. If you want leftists on board, you need to move to the left. If you want to move to the right, then you need to expect defections and criticism from the left.

[kentuck]

52. Well said Claudia....

You are bursting some bubbles. And we wonder why the Democratic Party is in such a mess?

[tblue]

58. I know someone who knew him long ago

Really. He was Obama's boss at some job in NY, I don't know. But when asked to describe Obama back then the answer he gave was "aloof." I think this potus is very much a loner, mostly by choice.

[patrice]

67. I still don't understand why people don't credit the FACT that Wall Street had just disemboweled

itself in PRIVATE BUSINESS CONTRACTS, secret information that he needs in order to respond without hurting it any more than necessary, for that he needed INSIDERS to advise him.

Yes, he could have decided NOT to try to save Wall Street from itself and just let those fuckers eat each other and then deal with the consequences of THAT, including the possibility of radically increased FOREIGN ownership of ALL types of American equity, but . . . .

He isn't the kind of guy who thinks it's okay to inflict pain on ignorant others, i.e. us and those in worse condition than we are, without at least a heads up, which, as it turns out, with some exceptions, is mostly what we've gotten out of the last 3 years.

[kentuck]

68. I tend to think that some should have had to pay...

Too big to fail was not good for us and I tend to think it would have been better for all of us if a few of the criminals had been permitted to fail or had been sent to jail.

[patrice]

71. Me too! But I CAN imagine the problem of figuring out which and how much would be best especially

when it's all private business, so you're basically ignorant of the things you need to know in order to make those decisions.

He really should have done more with the stimulus, to establish somekind of "socialized" counter-balance to that bloody shark tank known as Wall Street.

[kentuck]

74. Yep.

This was a clear victory for the capitalists over the rest of us, in my opinion. Heads they win, tails we lose.

[dbt]

4. "But he is a Democrat"

NOPE. He ain't a Democrat until he ACTS like one.

[kentuck]

6. Are you saying the "D" by his name doesn't make him a Democrat?

That is going to shock a lot of people here.

[dbt]

21. Yeah, I'm comfortable with that.

If it walks like a Republic, talks like a Republic, acts like a Republic and smells like a Republic, it probably IS a Republic.

Lotta people here need to wake the hell up before the continued shocks kill them, imo.

[leveymg]

7. He's a corporate lawyer. Lots of them just like him - economic conservative, social liberal.

They're all like that. Corporate mercenaries who have good manners and have to be well paid to fight.

Backbone of the Establishment, but no particular backbone for a fight - unless they're working on retainer for a major corporate client.

[grantcart]

13. Really a 'corporate lawyer'?

Just for fun can you list the corporations that he represented as an attorney?

[leveymg]

16. He's an exemplar of the type.

He's been serving all 500 of them:

[grantcart]

53. ah yeah that type

The type that serves as Editor of the Harvard Law Review and turns down Supreme Court Internships (which lead to prime recruitment to senior counsel and 7 figure jobs) and immediate placement on Wall Street to go to work in Chicago at a small civil rights firm and teach at a university.

Corporate law is a very specific area that involves mergers, aquisitions, shareholder rights, legal registrations, SEC compliance and so on. Heading up voter registration organizations is not related to corporate law.



Chicago community organizer and Harvard Law SchoolTwo years after graduating, Obama was hired in Chicago as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.<28><29> During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen. He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.<30> Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.<31> In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.<32> He returned in August 2006 for a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.<33>
In late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,<34> and president of the journal in his second year.<30><35> During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.<36> After graduating with a J.D. magna cum laude<37> from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.<34> Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention<30><35> and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,<38> which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.<38>

University of Chicago Law School and civil rights attorneyIn 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.<38><39> He then served as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years—as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004—teaching constitutional law.<40>

From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter registration drive with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, and led to Crain's Chicago Business naming Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.<41> In 1993 he joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.<42>

From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and of the Joyce Foundation.<28> He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.<28>




Your charge that he is a corporate lawyer has Nobasis in fact.

He is in fact an exemplar but not that of a corporate lawyer

–noun
1. a model or pattern to be copied or imitated: Washington is the exemplar of patriotic virtue.
2. a typical example or instance.
3. an original or archetype: Plato thought nature but a copy of ideal exemplars.
4. a copy of a book or text.


You on the other hand are an example of a wide spread, you can say ubiquitous trend at DU.

Forget facts and just make up any shit about Obama that you want.


edited to add link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

[leveymg]

63. That's his resume, not his record as President. I thought he was a great candidate, too.

Worked like hell -- knocked 4,000 doors, recruited hundreds of volunteers -- for Obama.

You have no idea how disappointed and let down I feel. You can't know, because you're still a True Obama Believer. Wake up.

He's the best Republican President we've had in half a century. I still like Barack, but I sorta still like Ike, too.

[patrice]

69. I worked and donated too, but I always thought his temporizing was clear. That was so easy to hear

in his discussions of the Wars.

Maybe my ear is just a little more fine-tuned than average, but I NEVER heard anything far enough to the left, often enough, to be convinced he was anything but a centrist.

I voted for him, because I consider him a step in a maturation process that this country needs to go through in order to free itself from MIC.

Not so sure that's possible now, because I have doubts "the Left" can cohere into anything that is even remotely functional. I fear all we're going to get is somekind of "premature ejaculation", followed by the old boss wearing "new" labels.

Sorry about the metaphor, but that just about exactly describes what I see happening here at the DU.

[leveymg]

72. I knew he wasn't really a progressive. But, I didn't expect to be appalled and feel betrayed.

Since entering the WH Bubble, he's either gone off the deep end stage-right, or he was a con from the start.

Either way, we're f-cked.

[patrice]

73. I agree with that description. I didn't expect those feelings either, but I'm still fighting to

maintain my balance, because I need that to see the way forward.

[leveymg]

75. I need to get this anger out and behind. I just hope he doesn't give me more.

Give us a break - and no more wars this term. You've had enough X-Box.

[patrice]

85. We need to stick together, so we can identify some effective means to work for ourselves, instead

of repeating the same old mistakes in a variety of different colors (and NO I'm not a racist, that's just a useful metaphor).

[kentuck]

76. Even if not a progressive, I thought he was liberal enough to recognize...

the situation we were in and was not so naive or stupid as to underestimate it or to actually continue the Bush policies which we all abhorred. I feel like he slapped the left in the face, taking for granted that they would always be there for him.

[leveymg]

77. I think he's overwhelmed and outmatched by the Washington Establishment & Wall St.

Here's a scary thought - he's given up and letting them play the game their own way.

We're truly fracked.

[kentuck]

79. Too bad...

He didn't get more progressives to guard his back and to give him some different advice, even if he didn't accept it. I think he is truly in a bubble.

[leveymg]

81. He chose his own advisors, and half of them are still with him.

Who the survivors are tell the story. I don't believe he can truly be THAT isolated that he doesn't know what's going on, or wouldn't seek out progressive voices IF HE WANTED TO.

The bubble theory only explains so much.

[JoePhilly]

10. The stimulus was "conservative"? The auto bailout?

These are conservative things?

Extending unemployment?

The folks who are confused ignore these.

[leveymg]

12. Woefully inadequate, particularly compared to the Wall St bailout and QE2.

BTW: What was the deal he agreed to for extending unemployment - recall?

[TwilightGardener]

15. Inadequate, or the best that could pass? It all depends on the yardstick.

[leveymg]

22. The best he and the present Senate and Fed leadership would pass.

Woefully inadequate, particularly by comparison to the Wall St bailout and QE2. And, yes, he could have replaced Bernanke, and he didn't have to appoint Geithner and Summers to head his economic policy team, but he did. If Obama were a progressive, things could have and would have turned out much differently.

You know policies and outcomes could have been far better if the President had different priorities.

[TwilightGardener]

25. I don't think he's very liberal/progressive, but then I never thought he was.

He's still managed to get a lot of shit done that leans to the left side of the spectrum, CONSIDERING the makeup of today's Democratic party and Dem Congress and the nature of his opposition. Is he the most progressive President we're going to get in these times? I believe so. But take heart, Republicans weren't able to privatize SS, end abortion, end most social programs they hate, enact racist/discriminatory laws, or eliminate the federal minimum wage--yet. Every party has to live with disappointment.

[leveymg]

31. The GOP has gotten most of its tax/economic agenda passed under Obama - the SS/Med cuts coming up

next, and almost all "discretionary" (social) program spending is on the chopping board.

They've done very well, all in all, and haven't been much disappointed.

[TwilightGardener]

34. I guess I'm alone in assuming that entitlements will be whittled down at least somewhat.

There are Dems who support it, too. In fact, they'll vote for it. The tax stuff was and is mostly a reaction to an unstable economy, an opposition party that isn't afraid to shoot the hostage and has vast money behind it, and a desperate hope that jobs will be created if we don't punish the "creators", but we know it won't work.

[JoePhilly]

70. The Wall Street bailout passed under Bush not Obama, you know that right?

[LWolf]

17. He is a right-of-center neo-liberal. I've never been confused about that. nt

[phleshdef]

18. He has NOT leaned toward conservative solutions on jobs, healthcare and taxbreaks. Maybe on trade.

But the Democratic party started adopting that kind of stance on trade way before we had ever heard of Barack Obama.

Aside from that though, you are being blatantly dishonest on those other 3 items.

Obama's Presidential record/positions on jobs has been government stimulus and federal investment of infrastructure. So called conservatives and liberals have supported both of those solutions in the past. But these are not conservative solutions. These involves federal programs and federal spending. That in and of itself makes them economically liberal solutions.

Calling the healthcare reform bill "conservative" would get you laughed out of a political science class. This is a bill that has the federal government telling every health insurance company in the country how they are going to run their business in terms of which customers they can/can't turn down, bans them from rescinding coverage unless fraud was involved, does not allow them to impose lifetime limits, etc. It also sets up a massive government healthcare subsidy based on progressive income scale. Insurance companies who want these subsidized customers have to participate in the exchanges and thus will have to meet additional requirements that HHS sets up as requirements for being allowed to participate. This is, from a pure political science perspective, extremely liberal. Its not single payer, all-government operated. But it involves welfare and it involves more government control of private industry. Even the mandate, as much as I'd wish they have done that part differently, can by no measure of the definition of the word "conservative", be called a "conservative" solution. Tack all that on with the increase in government support for free health clinics, restricting insurance companies to spending 80-85% of their intake on coverage needs and a billion other things, its pretty clear that there is nothing conservative about the healthcare bill. You have solutions here that have found support among people like Bob Dole and people like Ted Kennedy. None of them were being particuarly conservative in the slightest when they supported such solutions. Its not the preferable kind of bill among progressive circles. But what is preferable among progressive circles does NOT define what is ultimately liberal. The words liberal and conservative have definitions outside of any specific ideological group.

Tax breaks is another problem altogether. Obama has been 100% consistent on advocating raising taxes on the wealthy and closing corporate loopholes. Most of the tax breaks he has supported/signed into law have been tax breaks for middle and lower income people. Thats the OPPOSITE of conservative trickle down theory. Thats progressive bottom up theory. You give the regular people more money, they will spend it because they are the "spenders". The economy will benefit because of it. I won't even get into another argument as to his reasoning on the Bush tax cut compromise. We all know the story. And I agree with his stance... extending unemployment benefits and keeping middle/lower income tax levels stable during a jobs recession is a billion times more important than making the left (and yes that includes ME) happy on how much rich people get taxed. Thats just the truth of the matter.

[kentuck]

26. As for the auto companies...

We should not overlook the fact that the auto companies were making record profits overseas. It was their American operations that were in trouble. God forbid they take their overseas profits and fix themselves. So I don't think that was as progressive a bailout as some might think.

As for the taxcuts and the Bob Dole healthcare plan, we could argue about the progressive merits of it but even with the changes made, the insurance industry remained mostly intact.

Progressives would have fought for the unemployment extension, as they have in the past, and not have surrendered so quickly and extend the Bush taxcuts for two more years and make the deficit larger which would then be used against you in a feeble debt limit fight.

And on and on...

[phleshdef]

33. Why are you avoiding the fact that you are wrong about what constitutes a conservative solution?

Now it seems you are changing your argument a bit and basing it solely on "what progressives mostly want" versus "what is liberal versus what is conservative".

I'll say it again. Just because something doesn't adhere to the common meme among progressive activists does not mean that something is conservative. Healthcare reform was a liberal bill based on the very definition of the word liberal. Financial reform was a liberal bill. The Recovery Act was a liberal bill. And half of the Bush tax cut compromise involved the very liberal act of subsidizing security for the unemployed.

Progressives would have fought for the unemployment and extension and either LOST (thus not being worth jack shit) or they would have ended up compromising on something else later. It was the end of the year and a Republican ruled Congress was on its way in. As we've seen, the Republicans don't give a shit. They WILL let it all sink, re-election be damned. They don't care.

Anyone that would have advocated against bailing out the auto companies is not taking a pro-middle class/pro-labor position. I'll just leave it at that.

[kentuck]

39. That's your opinion and I think you are wrong.

So I guess we will just have to disagree.

[blindpig]

19. There is nothing to be confused about.

He is an agent of American capital, as every American president necessarily is.

It's part of the job description they don't talk about, but if you watched the vetting process it told the story.

[TBF]

23. Anyone who is confused should read his "Audacity of Hope" -

where he lays out his "sell-out" in easy terms for anyone with the stomach to read it.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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

[PufPuf23]

24. POTUS Obama is a neoliberal that campaigned as a liberal .

Neoliberals are essentially the same as neoconservatives in economic, domestic, and foreign policy but depend on different social blocks (social liberals, minorities, labor, young et al vs religious right, white, older voters).

Neoliberals and neoconservatives are globalists that follow money and are for the elite rather than the People.

My druthers are that POTUS Obama announces his attention not to run in 2012.

[treestar]

28. One is going to be confused when one cannot tell the difference

between what one may believe is the ideal world and what one can realistically do.

I may think the ideal candidate is the Green candidate, but I'm not going to vote for them in this climate. So that makes me a Democrat.

People who don't believe in the existence of Congress are bound to think Obama is less progressive than he is, but that's because of their ignorance. When a person is confused, it is best not to blame others but to do some research and learn more.

[jefferson_dem]

30. No puzzle. He's obviously a Kenyan, Marxist, Muslim, Black Nationalist, Corporatist, Slave-Driving..

Republican.

Now that we got that out of the way... Let's UNITE to win in 2012! :party:

[Moldywart]

32. President Obama was a Grassroots community organizaer...

for three years, while earning a law degree, and graduated in 1991. He served as a State Senator from 1996 to 2004, not quite three times longer than he served as a Community Organizer.

How many people flipped burgers, sold cosmetics, exterminated bugs or performed some other job while attending a University? How many of those people put "flipping burgers," "selling cosmetic," or "exterminating bugs," as major factor on their resume?

**edit "yorganizaer"

[wuushew]

36. Obama's problems are ALL psychological and cannot be fixed

His personality was gelled in childhood and cannot be altered without major life trauma.

We don't know what he stands for because he lives inside a shell and does not emote. His campaign "bombasity" is merely a fined tuned stage performance which he is skilled at.

Obama is conflict adverse and that is how and why these right wing policies get shoved down our throat.
How does political ambition co-exist with conflict aversion you ask? Simple, Obama by accident of history was elevated to the Presidency. Holding an office at state level is fairly low key and may serve personal or professional goals.

Obama certainly was not likely to be an Illinois senator, but fate and its twin blessings of a Jeri Ryan sex scandal and the insanity of Alan Keyes made it so. Obama is so meek that he became a sycophant of Harry Reid. It was Harry Reid's ambition combined with the Bush catastrophe that lead us to the present reality.

An improbable chain of events to be sure, but we seem to be living one of the worst possible multi-verses of all possible realties when history diverged in the year 2000.

[kentuck]

44. Interesting...

Hmmmmm...

[Poll_Blind]

56. Wuushew, your last sentence. +1,000

I could go on about that quite a bit but I'll just say if you look at the Bush years, alone, it's like they kept coming up heads on every coin toss.

PB

[WinkyDink]

60. E.g., His paternity issue is not one of passport or birthplace; it is one of abandonment.

[TwilightGardener]

61. If you were to really look at it, all Presidents are Presidents by accidents of history.

And the one thing I do not see in Obama is sycophancy--especially not toward Harry Reid.

[nenagh]

62. Conflict averse... thank you for posting your comment...

What upsets me is that the WH, or people around Pres Obama, either don't seem to grasp what you say... or can't see a pathway out of that dilemma.

Having just listened to Sarah Palin push every psychological string and religious dog whistle to activate her base... it is NB that someone is able to confront or at least chat with Pres Obama..

Really, for a President who is possibly more computer and internet literate than many who came before him... to not realize that this dodging to the right then the left.. comes across as vacillating and ultimately weak-kneed... is something he may not have thought about before.

Or, worse yet, the Determined Right will have studied the man psychologically for years, and realize that the more conflict they present the President with... the more anxious he becomes.

Bummer.

[leveymg]

78. In other words, he's a weak President who lets everyone else in DC run him over?

He does this because he doesn't really have any solid ideology or identity. Some of us have come to that same conclusion.

The guy is a masterful stage actor - no wonder he reads about Reagan on holidays.

[Tatiana]

92. This is some very astute analysis. I concur. n/t

[loyalsister]

96. OMG!

Armchair psychology is bad enough, but this? If you were to read "Dreams From My Father," you would see that Obama is very self - aware of the struggles he has had. He set out very deliberately to find out what it is like to be black in America. He traced his roots to Africa and joined the church as it represented a family that shared his experiences.
Many very psychologically healthy people do not like conflict and do not see how it is productive. I would argue that there is something wrong with seeing it as the more honorable tactic over problem solving.
Obama is idealistic. For better or worse, he is a true believer in what he said from the beginning.. where he claimed we have more in common than the media and politicians want us to believe. And, that the rancor is an unnecessary distraction that prevents people from clear headed thinking and problem solving.
The 24\7 media has trained people to enjoy conflict by having 2 or more political commentators on TV yelling at each. Calling it "news programming" has convinced people that that is how government should work.
Very few people grow up believing the presidency is a logical goal. There are families with political legacy, but they are the exception. The fewer the better, IMO.

[wuushew]

97. I need to know what makes him tick so that he can stop screwing up

Can he be nagged into better policies, can he be praised? Nobody has a clue how to apply necessary leverage.

[loyalsister]

98. First, remember all campaigns are show

The candidacy and holding office are two different roles. I suspect Obama would be the first to admit that it's very easy when all you have to do is be optimistic and loud in front of a friendly audience that expects you to confirm their beliefs. Once that person takes office the technicalities of forming policy and advocating a position in front of an audience that is not only unfriendly, but has stated that they want you to fail. Add to that the fact that the friends who were so receptive have left because the other audience could not be convinced.
Obama has been entirely consistent in his goals to get back to representative government with some common sense. I saw this happen before. Republicans and Democrats used to be able to work some things out together in our state GA. Then came Bush and the republicans became more strident and partisan at the expense of good policies that would benefit their constituents.
Obama is still pursuing policies that benefit the people who voted for him. Some simply see caving when it came to the extension on the tax cuts. Another way of looking at it is that he did not allow the republicans to eliminate unemployment. It saved Christmas for one of my friends who worried she was not going to be able to buy any gifts for her kids.
From what I have seen, Obama is not a black and white thinker. He is not stridently partisan. I don't think that means he is a sell out to republicans. He does recognize that many of them do represent real voters. After living under a RW regime that did not even acknowledge or value my existence, I give him credit for that.
How do I get him to do what I want him to do? Organize, educate, and give him a congress that supports my positions. There is nothing to indicate that Obama would not have signed legislation that included the things we favor. That includes HCR with a public option, an extension of unemployment and ending W tax cuts, a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling.....
I have taken on volunteer positions in order to educate people about my perspective on poverty and disability. Working on those things at the most basic level goes a long way.

I understand disappointment, but attributing it to psychological pathology, secret nefarious motives, etc. doesn't really reflect Obama's political goals and positions.

[loyalsister]

48. We're STILL in Kansas

where social issues have been used to convince people to vote against their interests. Since that operation began, Democrats have been trying to balance social and economic issues. A perfect example is when the republicans held PP funding hostage during the HCR debate.

The "fiscal conservative\socially liberal" is found in blue states. The socially conservative Democrat is found in swing states.

Republicans have spent many election cycles putting us in this position. It's a well planned southern\midwestern strategy that has served them well.

How exactly do Democrats balance all of it? The blue dogs hopefully increase the congressional rolls of Democrats. This government is not being dragged to the right. With the power of the midwest, it sits far to the right of what we would hope. We can never pull it to the left until we somehow bring the Democratic party together. That can not be accomplished until we give some credence to people we intensely disagree with.

Obama is in a position where he has to try to give the blue dogs support. They do represent real voters.
I think it's the US that is the puzzle.

[patrice]

66. I could not agree with you more. We need/MUST learn different ways to be us. The Right has

had the advantages provided by churches and the CoC and Media to pave over what differences there are in authoritarian complicity.

The Left has never had any of those tools and, though I agree in principle with a lot of the critique of Obama, I have to draw the line at the fact that I see no functional proposals for HOW, step-wise, we learn to be us to one another.

[loyalsister]

84. Thanks

There are certainly legitimate criticisms of Obama. But, rejecting the whole presidency based on those criticisms does not help us move in a positive direction. One way to start might be to acknowledge that there really have been leftward steps.
No doubt there is a lot to do. But some groundwork has been laid.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

93. I would maintain that the "conservatism" of the Midwest is nearly all in the area of

behavioral issues. On economic issues, they can be pretty liberal.

But the Dems have abandoned the economic issues that created the New Deal coalition. Most notably, they controlled Congress in the early 1980s, but they did NOTHING for the thousands of farmers who lost their farms due to a double whammy of low prices for their products and record-high interest rates. It was heartbreaking to see these stories on the local news in Minnesota.

The Dems should have proposed a low-interest refinancing program for family farmers (and only family farmers, not agribusiness). Farmers borrow every year, and they know how to repay loans.

If Reagan had vetoed it, the Dems could have shouted that from the rooftops: "It's Reagan who is preventing you from keeping your farm!"

If the Dems had made it possible for family farmers to stay in business, the rural Midwest would have loved them for another generation.

I'm sure the Republicans were on the side of agribusiness buying up all the old family farms, and maybe the "moderate" Democrats were, too, but the Democrats as a whole should have been on the side of the small farmer. And they were not.

[loyalsister]

95. Small farmers stuck with Democrats in MO for a long time

There were small farmers who were doing okay. They also elected pro-life\pro-gun, religious right Democrats at the state level. They usually voted for republicans at the federal level, though.
In 2002, farm subsidies became an issue. The state was broke and they were trying to scramble for money for education and medicaid. The economic interest show down.... conservative democrats supported republicans at the behest of the farm bureau that represented agri-business. They didn't want their tax dollars going to fund food stamps and health care- and why can't we just go back to locally funded one room schools?
The republican traditionalist mentality is very popular in rural areas here.

[WinkyDink]

59. "..he will use the ideas, Democratic or Republican, that he thinks will work best ...." Show me ONE

Republican idea that helps people.

[patrice]

65. I think the idea that to some degree people should do things for themselves IS a good idea. The prob

lem is defining what people:what things:to what degree, because that is essential to what things: to what degree that the people will NOT be required to do for themselves.

Politically abdicating that principle, the people should do (some) things for themselves, is part of what puts us all in the position of "the people will be required to do everything, in totality, for themselves, except WAR which can be mandated upon them against their will." We neeeeeed to OWN that argument, instead of being blind-sided by it EVERY time.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

80. I'm not puzzled at all.

[blkmusclmachine]

83. A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma:

Extends olive branches to the right. Extends contempt to the left.

[U4ikLefty]

89. Two-piece puzzle. Obama = good cop & Repubs = bad cop

Time to buy another puzzle.