Presidential dictatorship

You have psychic predictions?

Nobody is talking about Obama's popularity. We're talking about his effectiveness. We're talking about the fact that what he has been doing is similar to what Bush did in many instances, but on a much larger scale, and yet nobody who complained about Bush is complaining about Obama.

You were hired to fix things, and I'm sure you did a wonderful job at it. But Obama wasn't elected to fix things... He was elected to CHANGE them. Huge difference.

Really? OK, what would be the appropriate time to judge whether he's fixing things or not?

Really? In what way?

What I see is a President who has been taking such socialist actions in the US economy that world leaders of socialist countries are complaining that he's acting too socialist. I see him meeting with Russian bigwigs like Putin and getting lectured like a little schoolboy... And just sitting there and taking it. And THEN he goes out and makes speeches at Moscow University about how the USA and Reagan were NOT the impitus for the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. I see him giving interviews about how people like Lech Wallesa were more important to the fall of the USSR than Reagan, even though in a letter from Wallessa, he stated himself tha Reagan was the responsible party. Obama is acting like a pansy on the world stage. He's letting world leaders treat him like a child. He's allowing other countries to dictate the state of our military preparedness. He's trying to negotiate with dictators who have no intention of negotiating in good faith.

Let's not forget that the real reason the Obama went to Russia was to negotiate permission to transport military ground equiment through Russian territory into Afghanistan. He not only failed in that mission (or rather he negotiated a deal with so many caveats that we will never be able to meet them) but he also ended up negotiating a nuclear disarmament treaty that strongly favors Russia over the USA. He folded like a wet towel.

Bush may have been hated around the world. They may have hated him for his military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. MAYBE. It seems that at least a few leaders followed him. But I'll grant you that he wasn't well liked at all in many circles.

But Obama is a lightweight, and he's proving it over and over again. Oh, sure, all the world leaders like him. They like him the way they like a clown... Good for a laugh. He's becoming the laughingstock of the international community for his naivete, willingness to kowtow, and the quickness with which he becomes an apologist.

excon, you can look at Obama and say that he's improving our image in the world all you want. The facts on the ground say different.

But I know I shouldn't confuse you with the facts. Let's just give him time to do more of the same... Regardless of the consequences of those actions.

Watch what they do, not what they say... And what Obama is doing is both laughable and scary at the same time.

Elliot

Wondergirl,

So you agree that the stimulus bill was a dud because the money hasn't gone where it was supposed to go... Either because of greedy states or because the funds were never properly distributed. Or perhaps they were distributed, but the proposed stimulus projects never happened anyway. For whatever reason, the stimulus failed.

Do you now believe that we should do more of the same? Or are you yet convinced that the stimulus bill was a mistake that wasted money and stimulated nothing... Just as we conservatives predicted it would be.

And if it was a mistake, who's fault was that mistake? Does any of the blame for this mistake go to Obama? Or is it someone else's fault?

Elliot

The stimulus bill was fine. The allocation was fine. It's not over yet. The projects will get done. Rome wasn't built in a day. Patience is a virtue. All things come to those who wait. Sit tight and buckle your seat belt. Have faith.

Sorry, I know too much history to have faith. I already know how this plays out. We've already seen it in the Great Depression, and it dragged the economy through 8 years of economic ruin, saved only by a war and the need to put the economy on a wartime footing. We don't have any wars big enough to stress our entire economy and put us into a wartime-production mode. So that little safety net is out the window.

The only faith I have is in the Invisible Hand of the free market. I have absolutely none in the Iron Gauntlet of statism and government-central-planning.

Elliot

Obama is a capitalist. Never fear. (It's been only a few months. Why are you so impatient? I bet you used to try to peek into birthday gifts too when you were a boy. Maybe you still do.) We will come out of those 8 years of ruin.

I've just been reading that Obama wants his treaties to take effect BEFORE Congress ratifies them.

Seems kind of dictatorial to me.

Since the issue of guns was raised in this thread this is a timely piece. The state of Texas along with 32 other states has filed an amicus brief with SCOTUS in support of a Chicago man that lives in a high crime neighborhood and wants to own a gun for protection. The brief reads in part:

33 states agree with me on the essential nature of the 2nd amendment in protecting our other rights. Where this fits in the subject of this thread is this, in many ways Obama is as excon calls him, an incrementalist. He has a history of supporting anti-gun legislation in spite of his rhetoric in support of the 2nd amendment since he became presidential candidate and now President Obama. He also likes to distract us and sneak in policy initiatives and such in late Friday dumps when it gets lost in the news cycle. He wants you to be watching one hand when you should be watching what he's doing with the other hand.

Flash back to March when he nominated Harold Koh to be legal adviser to the State Department. Koh was confirmed in late June.

Koh delivered a speech on how to implement back door gun control in the face of a populace who believes that they have a Constitutional right to own a firearm.

Make your own conclusions...but watch both of Obama's hands.

Well I suppose its a two way street. You want to hear people complain about Obama the same way they did about Bush and they want to hear you defend Obama the same way you defended Bush.
Afterall, as you put it Obama is only doing what Bush did and you defended him. So why now do you have a problem with Obama? Why don't you defend him?

Or are you just as big a hypocrite as the hypocrites that whinged about Bush?

So you have facts to back up your claims that the world's leaders are laughing at him? Please provide them?