Does President Obama deserve to be re-elected?

[ThomasP]

No. I'm under US citizen, not registered as a Democrat. Going only by his performance, I wouldn't vote for him again and I don't believe he deserves re-election. He's managed to continue some of the worst offenses of the Bush years, he's been outright hypocritical on his 'change' rhetoric, and on the areas he could have made a difference he continually caves in to right-wing yelling.

I don't know if I'd go as far not to vote for him again, depending on who gets the Republican nomination, but it would definitely be a vote for a lesser evil more than any confidence in him as a politician.

[Mr Bean]

US Citizen, Registered Independent. I could be called a conservative on some issues but I have to many Libertarian and Liberal beliefs to fall into either of the two parties.

No President Obama does not deserve to be re-elected. I worked on his election and getting him into office and he reward me by giving me the same policies that President McCain would have given me. The only silver lining and I do mean the only silver lining is I helped keep Sara Palin the hell out of power.

As covered elsewhere our President is going for the title of Carter the 2nd except Carter got a few things done. When I look back at the things Obama has done I can think of only two the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act & the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act as the two big things he managed to get done. Two big good things that I can say Good on you Obama for getting them done. Every other one of his hundred "accomplishments" are bullshit as they are only accomplishments measured against the wonder chimp that was the George W Bush administration. Similar things would not appear on a Bill Clinton administration top 100.

Here's a blog post covering the top 100 achievements as of March 2010
http://simplifythepositive.blogspot.com ... arack.html
If you notice most of the accomplishments are anything but

16. Answered questions at the first online town hall from the White House that were submitted and voted on transparently by the public at WhiteHouse.gov:

That is number 16 on the list. A review of the first 20 of the 100 item list and I would say that fourteen of the first twenty are about as much of an accomplishment as number sixteen is.

This is a list of some guy on the Internet put together but it's notable on review the 100 items by my count 71 of those 100 items were not accomplishments. Either the thing he said they did never happened or Obama later reversed course and did something else or like number 16 calling something an accomplishment does not make it so.

[Starglider]

Obama appears to be a completely useless and spineless empty suit. The only upside of this is that it's better than the recent crop of Republican candidates, most of whom are actively malign and eager to screw over America and/or the rest of the world in service of wealthy sponsors and special interests. In retrospect, Hillary would have been a better choice, despite the nepotistic and lackluster nature of her campaign. Not that it makes much practical difference, the US two-party system has entrenched and congealed into an orthodoxy that leaves little difference between the gross policy decisions of the two parties (while being replete with firery, empty rhetoric and token actions). It is indefensible yet now inescapable.

[aerius]

With the possible exception of Bob Rae I can't think of any other leader (in the US & Canada) who's been more of a fuckup than Obama in my entire lifetime. If he keeps up his failures the Republicans could probably run Ron Paul against him and win, and if that happened I'd laugh so hard.

Obama is not only a total failure, he's also fucked up the Democrat support base and disillusioned a hell of a lot of supporters. If he keeps screwing things up and I'm pretty sure he will, there's a good chance he'll make his party as unelectable as the NDP is here in Ontario.

[Thanas]

With the possible exception of Bob Rae I can't think of any other leader (in the US & Canada) who's been more of a fuckup than Obama in my entire lifetime.

Bush?

[Thanas]

What boggles my mind is how a guy that comes from a non-privileged background, someone who should have learned the value of civil liberties through his law studies and his life, can be as worse or even worser than Bush on them.

[aerius]

Bush?

Nope. Look at the way Obama handled the BP oil spill. He never got a handle on the situation, lied his ass off the entire time with feel good PR conferences, turned away foreign aid, then let the entire thing become a goddamn circus where everything got fucked to hell. I thought the way Bush handled Katrina was bad, the way Obama handled the BP spill was beyond comic book bad, it was so bad that historians would probably have a hard time believing it when they go through the records 100 years from now.

[Thanas]

Yeah, but Bush started two foreign wars, Gitmo, torture etc, all stuff that would not have happened under Obama. If you think he is worse than Bush, you got a very selective memory.

[Sea Skimmer]

Bush started two foreign wars? You seem to have forgotten the reason why the US went into Afghanistan in the first place.

[Coyote]

US Democrat, and no, he does not deserve to be re-elected. There is no difference between having him in power and having another Republican. As it is, I'm almost of a mind already to say he is W. Bush's third term in office. What is more irritating is that a lof of "Democrats" are insisting we stick with him because "the GOP is worse". I don't see a difference.

Hell, even if the GOP ends up running Palin at least we'd know from the start what a lunatic moron we're dealing with, and she'd make the country hungry for a real Democrat again. We wasted months waiting for Campaign Obama to come out swinging, and he never did. We got Captain Cave-in instead.

Or at this point, a hard-core GOP'er can finally just Balkanize the damn country and be done with it. Hail, Cascadia for me.

[Big Phil]

What boggles my mind is how a guy that comes from a non-privileged background, someone who should have learned the value of civil liberties through his law studies and his life, can be as worse or even worser than Bush on them.

If this board were serious about maintaining standards, anyone who claims that Obama is worse than Bush should be permabanned for mind boggling stupidity; I expect that sort of idiocy out of the Teabaggers... on SDNet (where everyone is a self-proclaimed genius and master debater) it shouldn't happen.

Others have said it before - Obama would probably have been an okay, maybe even good, president had he not inherited all of Shrub's fuck ups. That being said, his handling of Bush's fuck ups is frighteningly incompetent.

[Thanas]

Bush started two foreign wars? You seem to have forgotten the reason why the US went into Afghanistan in the first place.

Georgia vs Russia would never have happened had the Bush administration not encouraged Georgia to poke the bear.

If this board were serious about maintaining standards, anyone who claims that Obama is worse than Bush should be permabanned for mind boggling stupidity; I expect that sort of idiocy out of the Teabaggers... on SDNet (where everyone is a self-proclaimed genius and master debater) it shouldn't happen.

He is as worse or worser on civil liberties, but Bush is worse on other areas (as should have been obvious by my qualifier "on civil liberties").

[aerius]

Yeah, but Bush started two foreign wars, Gitmo, torture etc, all stuff that would not have happened under Obama. If you think he is worse than Bush, you got a very selective memory.

Obama would've done Afghanistan just like Bush did, there's no way he has the balls to keep the public & Congress from sending troops over there after 9/11. Too many people wanted someone bombed back to the stone age, Obama would've caved and done it, guaranteed. I'l give you Iraq, that one probably wouldn't happen, but at the same time I doubt the military operations would be limited to Afghanistan alone, there was a lot of pressure to bomb half the Middle East. No way Obama can stand up to that, he'll fold.

Gitmo and torture I don't know, I don't know enough about the background to comment either way.

[Gandalf]

If this board were serious about maintaining standards, anyone who claims that Obama is worse than Bush should be permabanned for mind boggling stupidity; I expect that sort of idiocy out of the Teabaggers... on SDNet (where everyone is a self-proclaimed genius and master debater) it shouldn't happen.

Oh grow up. People defended the Iraq War, Bush's re-election and all manner of American political hilarity, without permabans. What causes issues is when the claims are not defended. Think about that for a second, and don't be such a dumb fucker.

What boggles my mind is how a guy that comes from a non-privileged background, someone who should have learned the value of civil liberties through his law studies and his life, can be as worse or even worser than Bush on them.

Part of me thinks that he's trying to compromise in order to please EVERYBODY. Republicans don't care about ~50% of the population's opinion, and as a result they're better at representing their voters. They're satisfied with what they have, and since elections can be won with that base they needn't try to please anyone else.

Obama wants everyone behind him, which just doesn't work.

[Thanas]

Yeah, but Bush started two foreign wars, Gitmo, torture etc, all stuff that would not have happened under Obama. If you think he is worse than Bush, you got a very selective memory.

Obama would've done Afghanistan just like Bush did, there's no way he has the balls to keep the public & Congress from sending troops over there after 9/11. Too many people wanted someone bombed back to the stone age, Obama would've caved and done it, guaranteed. I'l give you Iraq, that one probably wouldn't happen, but at the same time I doubt the military operations would be limited to Afghanistan alone, there was a lot of pressure to bomb half the Middle East. No way Obama can stand up to that, he'll fold.

Gitmo and torture I don't know, I don't know enough about the background to comment either way.

Even if your analysis would be correct, that still makes Obama better than Bush.

[aerius]

Even if your analysis would be correct, that still makes Obama better than Bush.

Ok, we give an edge to Obama on foreign wars, relations, and torture. On the minus side we have civil liberties as you've mentioned, the healthcare assrape which is basically free money for the healthcare industry at the expense of most Americans, the BP clusterfuck, the banking bailout and economics fuckup which is free money for banks, corporations and rich people at the expense of everyone else, and then he gets on TV and tells everyone that the assraping is not rape and that it's good for them.

[Thanas]

Get off it Aerius. The civil liberties would not have happened had Bush not paved the way, the healthcare still insures more people than before etc. Quite frankly, not going to war in Iraq far outweighs all the other things. You'd have to be terminally retarded to assume Obama is the same as Bush.

[aerius]

I see what you're getting at now, if you took Obama back to 2000 he wouldn't have fucked up as badly as Bush. Fine, i won't argue that. However if we magically granted Bush a 3rd term, could you say that he'd do worse than Obama has done so far?

With regards to healthcare, it covers more people but it also costs more and on top of that it fines people who can't afford healthcare insurance or who choose not to purchase HC insurance.

[Uraniun235]

US citizen, no party affiliation.


I refuse to vote for Barack Obama again. At this point, I don't care if the opposition is further to the right than any currently sitting Republican, because either one will still be aiming the country further into the nose-dive.




Hey, on another note, has Joe Biden done anything lately? I haven't heard anything about him saying anything, but that might reflect more on me than anything.

[Uraniun235]

I see what you're getting at now, if you took Obama back to 2000 he wouldn't have fucked up as badly as Bush. Fine, i won't argue that. However if we magically granted Bush a 3rd term, could you say that he'd do worse than Obama has done so far?

My question is, what would McCain have done by now? I doubt he'd have done any better, but I'm wondering if it would have been the same level of failure in different ways, or if he'd have somehow found a way to really screw things over even harder.

[General Zod]

Hey, on another note, has Joe Biden done anything lately? I haven't heard anything about him saying anything, but that might reflect more on me than anything.

It's not as if the VP has any real responsibilities outside of breaking ties in the Senate. At least we can say someone in Obama's administration is doing his job.

[TimothyC]

How many other prominent American politicians can speak well in public? Not just adequately, but well.

Well I wouldn't even rank President Obama as adequate in public speaking. Did you know that President Obama was the first person to ever use a Teleprompter in the Indian Congress Hall? Having watched proceedings of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, I dare say most of the Senators and a fair minority of the Representatives are better public speakers than President Obama. When you watch or listen to his speeches, remember he's not delivering them from memory, but reading them off of a screen in front of him.

Hey, on another note, has Joe Biden done anything lately? I haven't heard anything about him saying anything, but that might reflect more on me than anything.

Back over the summer his trip to Wisconsin threw off my flight schedule a bit. He's the anti-Cheney.

[General Zod]

Well I wouldn't even rank President Obama was adequate in public speaking. Did you know that President Obama was the first person to ever use a Teleprompter in the Indian Congress Hall? Having watched proceedings of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, I dare say most of the Senators and a fair minority of the Representatives are better public speakers than President Obama. When you watch or listen to his speeches, remember he's not delivering them from memory, but reading them off of a screen in front of him.

I don't see how teleprompters are a valid criticism of anything. There's plenty to fault him on, but unless he makes a spectacular gaffe while using a teleprompter I'm not sure how it's significantly different than having a stack of notes on your podium.

[Cecelia5578]

How many other prominent American politicians can speak well in public? Not just adequately, but well.

Well I wouldn't even rank President Obama as adequate in public speaking. Did you know that President Obama was the first person to ever use a Teleprompter in the Indian Congress Hall? Having watched proceedings of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, I dare say most of the Senators and a fair minority of the Representatives are better public speakers than President Obama. When you watch or listen to his speeches, remember he's not delivering them from memory, but reading them off of a screen in front of him.

Hey, on another note, has Joe Biden done anything lately? I haven't heard anything about him saying anything, but that might reflect more on me than anything.

Back over the summer his trip to Wisconsin threw off my flight schedule a bit. He's the anti-Cheney.

As a trivial counter example, when I work as a cashier, sometimes I flub saying stuff that...in hindsight seems obvious or that I've said a few thousand times before and that I should know from memory. When you are addressing millions, potentially billions of people, I think most people are going to have their occasional brain farts and whatnot. In this case, who cares if they use a teleprompter? There's lots to criticize Obama for, this is just...well, "hey look, southern fundie redneck GOP congressman doesn't use a telepromter, therefore he's smarter than Obama" levels of childishness.

[Cecelia5578]

If we are going to get Republican policy out of him, I would far rather prefer a real Republican because that would be so insulting and it would mean less stupidity on cutting military R&D for no reason. Obama has no political will and rolls over like a pet trying to appease its master. I can't stand it. He reminds me of the UN. He values an agreement because it is an agreement even if to make that agreement its watered down into something which is worse then doing nothing. He will not face failure, and yet this causes him to fail completely. I don't see it changing; though I damn well hope it will.

I don't like his F-22/BMD/Constellation cuts as much as Shep, but I think a lot has to do with the hand he was dealt. Because of our little imperial experiment in conducting two simultaneous land wars in Asia, I don't think the fiscal environment exists in which to do those things. Plus, liberals can try to out-hawk the Republicans by claiming that stuff like the F-22 and BMD have no relevance in Iraqistan.

And lets not forget the fetish for COIN, which has surely done a little damage to high profile projects like the F-22. Oh, and the mania for wanting to abolish the USAF among many American liberals and the corresponding desire to make the new USAAF nothing but fucking A-10s.