My analysis of Obama

[cali]

I don't think it's so much that he's in the pocket of the corporations or the super wealthy- though I do think that to a large degree he's held hostage by them, but that goes to my central point: He's a weak man with a desire to be liked-- for lack of a better word- that outweighs any principles he may have.

[sabrina 1]

1. He doesin't seem to mind being disliked by the people

who elected him.

He seems to want to be popular with the bullies. No matter how they tell him how they hate him, he keeps trying to get their approval.

So far, he has managed to get some approval, grudging though it was, from Dick Cheney and a few other nefarious characters from the far right.

But he clearly doesn't care what Progressive Democrats think of him for some reason. So it isn't just an 'I want to be popular' thing, it's an 'I want to be popular with the bad guys'.

[pnwmom]

3. With a country as diverse as ours, how is he supposed to be "liked"

by everyone?

[sabrina 1]

11. He isn't, he has a choice of who he cares to please.

So far, he's made Corporate America very happy and he tries really hard NEVER to take a public stand on behalf of progressive Democrats. He doesn't want to be seen as part of the 'left'. He's like a kid who is ashamed of his parents because they are poor or something.

If progressive dems are unquestionably right about something, eg, and he has to make a comment about it and there's now way to say they are wrong, he will inevitably use the 'both sides' garbage we see in the corporate media also. Or his speech will be injected with the increasingly despised words 'bi-partisanship' and 'compromise'.

I have never heard him passionately speak on behalf of a progressive issue, such as SS eg, without adding some 'but' or other to the speech.

Not since the campaign anyhow.

[pnwmom]

21. He never tried to take a stand on behalf of progressive Democrats?

That's ridiculous. Progressive Dems might not like the pace or the extent of his accomplishments, but they're undeniable. He's made more progress in health care than any President of either party since Medicare and Medicaid were enacted; and DADT is about to end, thanks to him and to Congress.

But the fact is, he can't just please progressive Democrats. He also has to please moderate Democrats, centrist Democrats, and Independents. Otherwise, he won't be reelected. Progressive Dems are only a significant fraction of the people he has to please.

Why are progressive Dems so sure we are the "base" of the party? I think the base of the party consists of those Dems who consistently support Dems. Not people who can't tell the difference between Rethugs and Dems and, unless the Dem candidate is pure enough, doesn't care who wins.

[sabrina 1]

35. Progressive Dems are the ones who got him elected.

You left out Republicans who he consistently brings into the fold, even nominated several of them to important positions. We voted them OUT. We did not vote for him so he could give them the power the people took away from them. That's what elections are about.

When you are elected based on the positions you take in the campaign, that means the people have spoken and those are the positions, the issues that should be at the top of your list.

He was elected based on what he said he would do once he was president. It has nothing to do with the 'base of the party'. It has to do what made people vote for him. That included Independents, a demographic he lost in the last election, and moderate Dems. They heard his promises too. And the voted for him. So why would he NOT push those ideas, that all these people voted for?

Who was he trying to please when he lifted the ban on Offshore Drilling? What category of Democrat or Independents who heard him say he would never do that, supported lifting that ban? A disastrous decision as was proven just 18 days later. A Republican idea. He was wrong when he explained why he did it. He was wrong when he said that things had changed since the ban was put in place, and that we had progressed as far as 'safety concerns' with offshore drilling. He found out, tragically after the deaths of 11 human beings and the destruction of the environment, just how wrong he was. Why did choose to act on a Republican idea? Republican ideas are always wrong. So who was he trying to please then?

It is understood in politics that the winner gets to call the shots. We had to wait for eight years under a Republican WH who believed that they owed their base, the people who voted for them, to keep the promises they made to them. They never felt they had to cater to US, did they? And that's how it is, that's why we worked so hard to win, thinking that now it's OUR turn to push our ideas which he seemed to think during the campaign, were better ideas. Instead we hear this excuse that now he has to be 'president of all the people'. Yes, he does and to do that he should be pushing GOOD ideas that will benefit all the people, NOT Republican ideas that will not.

I love this bait and switch from when during the campaign we were urged to vote for the Democrat because then we would get to see the issues we cared about finally addressed.

Now, we are told 'sorry, but the president must please all of the people'. Do you think we will forget this in the next election? How what is said in a campaign, means nothing after the campaign? I mean, if we are to accept that voting for Democrats means they will still be pushing Republican ideas, then why vote for Democrats at all?

I hope if a Republican is elected s/he has the same attitude, but I am willing to bet that will not be the case. At least they remember who voted for them. Which appears to be more than can be said for this administration. As you are pointing out.

[pnwmom]

37. Democrats from across the spectrum got him elected. Most Dems

are not as far to the left as the typical DUer.

I didn't say he had to please ALL of the people. But pleasing MOST Democrats means pleasing progressives, moderates, and even the hated DINO's.

And I didn't say he took the best position on ALL issues. But, overall, he has advanced progressive causes. And given the situation in the House and Senate, there's no reason to think another Democrat would have been more successful.

[sabrina 1]

46. Duers are from across the spectrum also. I eg, am very conservative

on certain issues and could not be described as 'left' on many issues at all. I'm sure that is true of many people here.

Democrats from across the spectrum VOTED for him, but the hard work was done by the base of the party, progressive democrats, for the most part.

Sorry, he has advanced far more conservative than progressive policies. Another Democrat would have done better. Obama is a very conservative person. He is far more aligned with what could be described as moderate Republicans, although there are few them in any prominent positions of power right now.

That is why he thought of Reagan first when asked about presidents he admires. A real progressive Democrat would never have thought of Reagan when asked that question.

He has also demonstrated a real lack of knowledge about FDR, having made actually false statements about his record. Showing he had little interest in learning about Democratic presidents.

There's nothing wrong with being a Conservative, it's just that we needed someone who was way further to the left in order to undo the extreme policies put in place by the totalitarian Bush administration, or begin to.

I have accepted that he is someone who not so long ago would have been considered a moderate Republican. But with the swing to the right of the Democratic Party, people with his conservative views have found a home in the 'big tent'. The only people who are no longer welcome in the 'big tent' are progressive democrats. They are without a party.

It's no big deal, it's happened before in politics. They will either work to bring the party back to its roots, or there will be a change in the structure of politics. But it cant' continue the way it is. Too many people are not feeling represented these days. And you can blame them, call names, mention ponies etc. etc. but it won't change the fact that a lot of people do not feel welcome in the Democratic Party since they won the WH and both Houses of Congress.

It's just the way it is. Ironically, as I said above, I am probably more conservative than most democrats on many issues, but I see a real problem in the Dem party. We do not need two Republican parties, we need a balance and I am willing to swing way further to the left than I might normally want to, in order to tip the scale back from the far right where it is now.

[pnwmom]

48. Again, I disagree that the hard work was done only by the progressives.

And I disagree that the base = progressives.

I think the base comprises all the Dems who work year in and year out for Democrats, wherever they stand on the spectrum.

[sabrina 1]

51. I would agree that the base no longer is progressive.

But it used to be.

[cali]

4. every poll of liberals I've seen, shows him to be quite popular with them

[sabrina 1]

8. If he was watching the election results last November

he knew that the same people who put him in office, mostly Independents and the younger voters, had had it with him.

Nancy Pelosi and other members of the Dem Congressional leadership paid two visits to the WH before that election, trying to get him to stop attacking 'both sides' in his speeches, and warning that they were losing support from the people they most needed it from.

Polls mean nothing, I would not respond to a poll asking me to slam a democrat either.

Elections mean something though and he lost the last election because he lost the most important demographic, Independents and the young.

Pelosi's warnings were not given the attention they should have been given by the WH. Airc, the Obama crowd more or less dismissed her concerns and I'm not sure they cared.

[cali]

22. um, he wasn't on the ballot in November

[sabrina 1]

32. Yes, he was ~ the health care debacle was on the ballot.

[pnwmom]

57. Obama was not on the ballot. And Congress was just as responsible

for getting a history-making health care bill passed as he was -- the biggest health care bill since Medicaid and Medicare.

[pnwmom]

56. The other way of reading the election results is that without Obama

at the top of the ticket, fewer people were motivated to get out to vote.

But they'll be back in 2012.

[NorthCarolina]

15. I guess it is best not to put too much faith in polls. nt

[Angry Dragon]

2. ..........

:popcorn:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Hard to say -- you never know what's in someone else's head --

but I'm beginning to wonder whether the problem is not so much weakness and/or wanting to be liked, but a genuine, if misguided belief, that other people are always rational actors and that they will do the logical, sensible, right thing if you can just persuade them. Obama is very much an academic, and his background as a constitutional law scholar may have made him conclude that Americans, including Republican politicians, really believe in and will follow the law and the Constitution. I don't think he understands dogmatic ideologues who will follow a party line even when it's not rational to do so. The right wing is fundamentally irrational in its ideology, kind of like Maoists who insisted that their brand of Communism would free the workers despite all evidence to the contrary. I don't think Obama really understands how utterly irrational the GOPers have become and so he doesn't know how to deal with them -- so he keeps compromising and promising to "work with" them. He's Spock, unable to figure out how ideologues think. "That is not logical," he says, and despite the craziness keeps trying to make it all logical.

But who knows, really?

[Tatiana]

6. In what context do you mean "weak?" Because I see him get very feisty when it comes to progressive

interests. Like the public option, like the tax breaks for the wealthy, like being annoyed with "the professional left."

But yeah, he's weak. When it comes to opposition from the other camp, his instinct is to give in, hoping that maybe they will like him, maybe they will respect him.

I honestly think he cannot get it through his brain that there are Republicans that hate his guts and will always hate his guts, no matter how many of their policies Obama adopts. He can't get over the fact that someone isn't charmed by him (which I also think speaks to his healthy vanity and ego as well).

I've never seen any President offer up a significant part of what the opposing side wants before negotiations have begun in earnest. That's why I'm glad he's not in Wisconsin. I don't think the labor movement would be nearly as powerful or effective if Obama were involved.

[Snoutport]

7. He flies under the radar

and just when you are frustrated he's not saying anything suddenly some important piece of legislation is through. It is confusing because I'm never really sure if he's there for me...but, then there he is.

[Marr]

28. You mean like that important piece of legislation that's going through in Wisconsin?

[uppityperson]

9. Although not as much as I wish were happening, I think he is doing best he can in an awful situation

Things have gotten so bad with so much more getting worse and so much blocking of everything he might propose that getting anything done is a miracle.

[bluestateguy]

10. He fears being labeled an angry black man

He fears being lumped in with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and big city black mayors.

[sabrina 1]

12. Then he is weak. Why should he worry about what people think of

him? A strong person worries about principles and fights for them regardless of what people you shouldn't care about anyhow, think.

[jaxx]

18. Labeling isn't acceptable.

It's offensive.

[Whisp]

39. I don't think he fears that at all.

It's just not his nature to shout and drool. Some people are naturally like that, thank goodness.

[NillaWafers]

40. Wow. He's President Of The United States and he is worried about what people think of him???

I don't think so.

[JVS]

47. If he's afraid of that, he shouldn't have run for president.

[Moondog]

13. That's the generous take.

The non-generous take being that he's from Chicago, and the Chicago Way is that when you're bought, you stay bought. Or else.

[NorthCarolina]

16. The generous take vs the likely take

Hmmmmmm....wonder which one is most likely :think:

[Shagbark Hickory]

14. I can picture his first day in office. Some armed goons sat him down and told him how things are

gonna be.

Yep. I could see this.

[Cleita]

17. I think so too, and they got to him with

enough to scare him or make him think that putting himself and his family in peril wasn't worth it. I suppose we won't live long enough to find out what really happened, but I'm sure history will eventually expose what really happened.

[steve2470]

19. I agree.

I also think the harsh realities of campaign finances have pushed him to the right. Obama is no dummy. He knows the 2012 election will hinge, partially, upon which side has more money in the post-Citizens United era.

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. Tough for him to do anything with the bought and paid for whores in congress.

That's another big part of it.

[sabrina 1]

33. Or the Goldman Sachs guys he surrounded himself with.

[Brigid]

23. I think Obama just doesn't have the right temperament . . .

necessary to be a Democratic president right now. Like Velveteen Ocelot said, he honestly believes that others are rational and will do the right thing if just presuaded. He just can't seem to be able to truly grasp the fact thatt the idiots on the right are NOT rational, and never will be. We need a more bombastic type to deal with clowns like Boehner, and that just isn't in his makeup.

[ProSense]

24. "He's a weak man with a desire to be liked"

Good grief!

:rofl:

[bluestate10]

30. The comment about weak man wanting to be liked is not worth a fiber of hair off my head.

Can any statement be more off-base? Progressives are wanted in the democratic party, but if the the view is their sitting out an election matters, they have to only look at Massachusetts and California 2010 races where motivated Independents more than made up for the Liberals that stayed home and elected or re-elected democrats that were in tough, tough races. The critical voting block will be hispanics in 2012, and by and large, hispanics are moderates. I like Liberals, but I am one moderate that is tiring of kissing their asses while they insult a very good President.

[Marr]

25. People think about politicians the wrong way. They're basically

a subspecies of the modern corporate executive, with a bit of televangelist thrown in. Most are just self-serving con-men who enjoy the spotlight. While we sit around talking about what ideals Obama does or does not cling to, he's thinking about precisely how much he can service Wall Street and still be politically viable in the next election. Ideals don't figure into it.

[tiny elvis]

44. you are about as smart as dr michael parenti, which is very

only two minutes long
http://fora.tv/2008/01/17/Michael_Parenti_Discusses_Contrary_Notions#Psychoanalyzing_Presidents_and_Politicians

[Marr]

45. That was an interesting point.

Thanks for posting that. I'll have to find some more from Mr. Parenti.

[tiny elvis]

50. absutively. here are my two favorite parenti lectures

lies, war and empire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZTrY3TQpzw
the assassination of julius caesar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO_Ldn2H4o&feature=related

[killbotfactory]

26. Progressive interests are held in check by corporate power, not the presidency.

The office of president can only do so much in the face of it when working with an obstructionist and reactionary congress backed by billions of dollars in corporate money and nearly a decade of federal positions stacked by extreme right wing republicans during the Bush years.

It's like you expect one man armed with a short stick to fight off a pack of wolves and come out victorious, while complaining about him and withholding support for him every time he gets bitten.

You could vote in the reincarnation of Karl Marx and he would be forced to make the same types of compromises if he wanted to get much of anything accomplished but grandstanding, ffs.

[sabrina 1]

36. Well, if we accept your analysis it really doesn't matter

whether a Dem or a Repub wins. So why did we bother to work so hard to get him into the WH? Why did no one tell us what you just said, back then? 'It won't matter what he wants to do once he gets to the WH because Congress won't let him do it'.

The problem is that is not what Nancy Pelosi has to say about it all.

He fights pretty hard when he really wants something. Pelosi has spoken about how THEIR arms were twisted to vote for 'unpopular' bills and how afterwards, the WH did nothing to help them win in 2010. I take her word for it. I wish she had NOT allowed her arms to be twisted by this WH.

So it seems you have it backwards, if Pelosi is telling the truth. Obama forced Democrats to go along with a HC bill they did not like. Iow what he got was what he wanted. I have accepted that he is not a progressive democrat or even close. It's easier than trying to make silly excuses about how different he was during the campaign. No more disappointments. I don't expect much of him that I wouldn't expect from any Conservative, Reagan Democrat.

[killbotfactory]

58. Of course it matters who wins the presidency!

It's just that anybody who becomes president isn't all powerful, and there are massive powerful forces at work against progressive interests. The separation of powers is something people learn about in grade school, ffs.

How many things did Pelosi and the House pass, only to die in the Senate due to lack of support? If Obama pressured the house to water down legislation, maybe it was because they didn't have enough support in the Senate to get it past republican obstructionism, just like every other fucking bill that's been through congress in the past two years?

Instead of blaming republicans, they get a pass, and all the blame goes to Obama. Goddamned ridiculous.

[madinmaryland]

27. I think he is a man who is determined to do things by the book, unlike the previous

administration. He wants the government to run as it is in written in the constitution. Unfortunately the constitution and the book have been shredded by the repukes.

[sabrina 1]

42. I couldn't disagree more.

He has zero respect for the Constitution which was clear when he voted for the FISA bill AFTER speaking eloquently about how such a bill would violate the Constitution.

No one who wants to do things according to the Constitution, would claim that a U.S. president has the right to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without charges or trial. I can't think of a more egregious violation of the Constitution than that.

And no one who understood and cared about the Constitution would have said what he said about the 4th Amendment destroying police state apparatus now installed in airports around the country. The Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution would turn over in their graves.

But even worse, he has recently decided to use the vile, Military Commissions Act (which Democrats were supposed to get rescinded) which violates every concept of a law abiding society. It destroyed for the first time in centuries, the concept of Habeas Corpus. A law which most Constitutional scholars have described as an actual overturning of centuries of the rule of law.

His refusal to prosecute war criminals, and worse, his attempts to interfere with other countries doing so, could hardly cause him to be viewed as someone who cares one bit about the Constitution.

To preside over the Gulag at Guantanomo and to now go further and agree to continue Bush/Cheney policies of holding trials in secret there, demonstrates his lack of respect for the Constitution.

To allow the trial of a child soldier who was severely tortured to go forward against all recommendations from Human Rights organizations, a decision that totally violates the Geneva Conventions, was a travesty of justice and no president who participated in that crime, can ever claim to care about the Constitution.

I could go on. But I'm just getting myself depressed. I can say that I was never disappointed by anything Bush did as I didn't expect anything more of him. But THIS president has shattered all my faith in ever restoring this country to any semblance of a democracy. Because I once thought that if we elected democrats we could start undoing all the damage done to the Constitution by Bush. Instead, the democrat we elected has not only done nothing to repair that damage, he has gone even further in some instances.

[Bonobo]

29. Yes, he is a "go along to get along" type.

That's how he has achieved.

He makes himself useful to others by delivering the message to people that he can reach but that those guiding him could not.

You don't get to be President of the Harvard Law Review with his background by making waves, but rather by showing your willingness to adapt to the organization that has already been set for you.

He is a useful tool for powerful interests.

I don't know why it wasn't more obvious in 2008 to me, but I suppose it is because he has become adept at image management.

[scarletwoman]

31. My most enduring memory of Obama the candidate was his appearance on Leno.

I can't remember if it was just before, or just after, he announced his candidacy, but it was right around that time, and his very first appearance on Leno.

What really struck me, and has stayed with me to this day, was how his demeanor in responding to Leno's mild questions was so extremely different depending on what kind of questions Leno asked.

Whenever Leno asked him about his personal history, Obama waxed eloquent and at length without a stumble. Whenever Leno asked any questions about what sort of POLICIES he would want to pursue as a president, Obama became all tongue-tied, and his answers were all full of "umms" and "ers" and "uhs" and disjointed non sequiturs.

To me, what I was witnessing was the revelation of a unmitigated egoist -- in love with himself and his story, but without any core beliefs or ideology.

Nothing I've seen since then has convinced me otherwise.

I never really *wanted* Obama, I only reluctantly supported him by default at the end because he was the last alternative to Hillary, who I was dead set against. Stupid me, I thought Obama was at least an alternative to the Clintonian DLC/Third Way crap that I could NEVER support.

He eventually learned how to talk a great game, all his stutters and stumbles from that early Leno appearance got smoothed over. And, of course, what real choice was there between voting for ANY Democrat or letting another Republican take office?

But I've never forgotten that first impression, and everything that's happened since then has only served to convince me that my first impression was absolutely correct.

sw

on edit: I rec'd your OP, btw.

[somone]

41. That was my impression as well

It was October 17, 2007

[QC]

54. The Letterman appearance gave me the willies, the one where he read the phonebook

in his usual soaring, sweeping style and sounded every bit as passionate and inspiring about that list of names as he ever did about anything in the campaign.

It was weird how he could turn it on and off.

That's when I began to doubt his oratory. What once had impressed me began to seem very affected then.

[KittyWampus]

34. Your analysis is out of touch with reality. He's a guy who wants to get things done which is how

progress is made.

[NillaWafers]

38. Wow. How come you weren't able to see this about Obama two years ago?

Serious question.

What led to your awakening?

[grahamhgreen]

43. I think he simply sold out, and justifies it through pretzel logic.

But i hope your right

[WiffenPoof]

49. Bingo!

I would rec your thread...but I don't use the rec/unrec system.
\
-P

[QC]

52. Cali, I think the issue here is that Obama is essentially a conservative.

No, not a teabagger or other such knuckle-dragger, but a person who believes that the system generally works well and should not be subjected to quick, drastic changes.

A Tory, in other words.

After all, the system has been very good to Obama. Despite the campaign talk of single mothers and living in an Indonesian hut, he actually had a pretty privileged upbringing--exclusive prep school, bank executive grandmother, entry into one exclusive college after another, etc. He got contracts for two lucrative autobiographies by the time he was in his forties and keynoted a national convention when he was still a brand new state legislator. And so on.

All his life, doors have opened for Obama. It's no wonder he believes in the system. After all, the system has been very good to him. And it is no surprise that he sees other beneficiaries of the system, the other people who went to the right schools and then got jobs in the right institutions (Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and others) as the right sort of people. Their story is his own, so they must also be good, solid people, right? The system brought Obama, and those others, to the top, so the system works.

There's nothing wrong with being a Tory, of course, but a Tory who presents himself as an agent of change is going to inspire some disappointment, to put it mildly, and that is why so many people who had such faith in the president are now feeling hurt.

[cali]

53. Could be, but I don't see that in his history

I genuinely believe he's a weak man and a weak leader.

[QC]

55. I would argue that he's complacent, which is not far from weak,

and complacency looks a lot like weakness in practice.

He certainly doesn't seem to feel any sense of urgency about what's happening in this country, does he?

[PurityOfEssence]

59. Regardless of the musings at the top of this post, the central point is true and trumps all

He's a campaigner; he's not a leader. He's a one-trick pony: be all things to all people, and avoid taking stands on anything controversial.

Once again, it's ironic that the only professional actor--a vocation notorious for its vapid need for universal admiration--that we've ever had as President (Reagan) didn't give a tinker's cuss what people thought about him, whereas our last two Democratic Presidents are seemingly obsessed with the need to have everyone love them, to the degree that they'll still try to curry favor even after the hounds have been loosed.

I'm sorry that people have had their illusions shattered or are having to go through mental contortion to square their projections with the actual person, and I don't say that with a shred of sarcasm; I know what it's like to be disappointed in heroes, and I feel for those whose hopes get similarly dashed. I have little empathy for those who lash out and demand that we ignore the obvious just to keep their precious and selfish dreams alive, as well as buttress their fragile egos when they're apparently unable to admit a bad assessment. Our lives, futures and children are at stake, and I don't personally OWE this man or his followers a rote pronouncement of their moral beauty or possession of a spine when they've blown so very, very many opportunities.

Many of us are on the record for assessments of this sort, and there's no satisfaction in the proof.

The question now is what do we do? He's patently incapable of standing up to even the worst of reactionary power grabs, even if so inclined, which is the 64 billion dollar question.

The truly interesting question is what, if anything, DOES he believe in? The quote about him seeing himself as a blank slate upon whom people chalk their hopes rings in my ears daily; the fact that one would be PROUD of such a thing is astonishing.

We all have at least one lesson to learn here, and that is that clear policy MUST be a foundation for allegiance to a politician; the faith in the individual and the belief that all maneuvering will be followed by steadfast leadership is truly unfounded.

Should he be primaried? Should he be primaried even if it almost guarantees a loss? Should he be left to politely give away everything with that broad smile and relaxed demeanor? What's the greater danger?

Regardless, the fact that we're still hearing the chirpy delusion of his shimmering, knightly grandeur is enough to make a sane person bite the carpet and impale the next passing politician with a fireplace-poker.

The instances of our agreements are so very, very few, but the true problem is this, and I don't mean to lessen your perspicacity by saying so: MANY MANY MANY people are seeing the same thing; it frankly doesn't matter if he actually IS the grand mega-genius 3D Chess Player just waiting for the moment to stride forth and stand up for the commoners, because nobody'd believe him if he did.