Eff Obama and all that live in him.

There - I said it. I voted for Obama because he was obviously the lesser of evils. We dodged the McCain bullet. That was nice.

Now what do we have? Obama not only makes Jimmy Carter NOT look like a big fat p*ssy in comparison, he (Obama) is beginning to remind me - no - not of Neville Chamberlain so much as of Vidkun Quisling.

He compromised single payer away and now this "compromise" on extending tax cuts to the rich is the last straw, for me, and I'll bet for millions of others.

The time is NOW for some other Democrat to step forward and say he or she is challenging Obama for the 2012 party nomination. And somebody like Howard Dean who can actually be elected - not effing Dennis Kucinich. If Joe Biden would resign and run for POTUS I would vote for him, if he acted like he had some integrity.

The republican party is EVIL. They are not going to be stopped by meeting them halfway in their EVIL.

To be honest I voted Nader in '00 and '04 and if I could take back the vote I gave Obama in '08 and give it to Nader I would now. I know Ralph never had much of a chance but I think we need multiple vibrant parties in this country. The democrats had large majorities in both houses and squandered everything. They have been about as weak as can be. Obama has done nothing to get his party together on anything and set any kind of coherent policy in anything. A major disappointment in my eyes. Anyway definitely don't like the republicans either.

If one looks at the record, Obama, despite paralyzing quasi-bipartisanship, cave-inism, bowing to foreign dictators, and all of the unmanly acts the left and right have castigated him for, has had some fairly remarkable agenda items passed: health care reform, a massive stimulus package, auto-maker bail out...er rescue. I sense the so-called progressive left is unhappy because they haven't gotten exactly what they wanted (e.g. single-payer health care, which had absolutely no chance of passage in the Senate). On this point, they are just as intransigently utopian as the right wingers who treat every vote by a Republican politician as a litmus test on echt conservatism. So the whining, sniping and hand-wringing about the tax cuts extension is just more of the same: the progressive caucus (or whatever is left of it) has no clue as to how to get what it wants passed in the Senate. The votes aren't there and this was clearly evident last week.

#3: I sense the so-called progressive left is unhappy because they haven't gotten exactly what they wanted (e.g. single-payer health care, which had absolutely no chance of passage in the Senate).

I'm resigned to agree. As a former bleeding-heart liberal I am disappointed to no end that the lefties' main gripe are the above-mentioned issues and are not vocal to any large degree over Obama's repudiation of the wars and of the PATRIOT Act. Maybe I'm just not listening carefully enough.

I blame all the Democrats for not checking out Obama in the first place. The one guy running in '08 that had less political experience than Palin wins the nomination? You got what you deserve guys.

Obama is a center-right sort of guy. That's way too far right for my taste, but what am I gonna do?

Throw the rascal out?

Brilliant. Now we can bring to power the party that has a quasi religious attachment to the "invisible hand", wants to dismantle social security in favor of a fully privatized individually funded pension insurance scam (each one for himself or herself), thinks unemployment insurance only encourages the undeserving poor to idle about buffing their nails and eating bon bons, all on the public dime, is perfectly comfortable with a growing disparity between the richest and all others, thinks social safety nets are the work of the devil, supports the "doctrine" of the "unified executive", rails against "judicial activism", and oh by the way has a wing of the party which delights in denying the facts of evolution, thinks that the separation of church and state is a "Bad Thing" (tm)" , opposes abortion even in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life, opposes sex education for teens and some forms of contraception for all, is xenophobic, homophobic, know nothing and yahoo.

Oh yeah, we'ld be so much better of with THAT party in control.

So, unhappy as I am with the Democrats and with Mr Obama, the current POTUS still lives up the the minimal program I expect of him. He's not that other party.

What I fail to understand is why anyone with a brain would say "well, Obama screwed things up even more, SO LETS VOTE THE PARTY THAT ORIGINALLY BONED US BACK IN." Yet thats what a lot of people seem to be doing. I'm amazed that the utter failure of the two major parties hasn't inspired more people to vote for third parties. Its bloody insanity. We've lost our collective minds.

He compromised single payer away and now this "compromise" on extending tax cuts to the rich is the last straw, for me, and I'll bet for millions of others.

We obviously differ on the rights and wrongs here, but I'm utterly perplexed by differing on the possibilities. The simple fact is that single-payer would have never, ever passed. The bill that did pass only did so by the narrowest of margins, and unusual trick. While elements of the bill are popular, the totality was unpopular when it was passed, and has only grown more so. Many Democrats ran away from it during the election, and quite a few lost their seats become of it. Maybe it was a good thing to press the possible so much. But if you think single payer would have passed—or even picked up half the necessary votes!—you're just out of touch with reality. It wasn't going to happen. It wasn't even a serious proposal. You might as well blame Obama for not nationalizing the trucking industry or banning guns. Some things aren't going to happen.

The compromise here was driven by Obama's realization that his power was hardly going to increase when the new Congress came in. Maybe he screwed up in the campaign. But he's not all-powerful.

#6: "Obama is a center-right sort of guy."

What does that even mean? Would the people who accuse Obama of being "center-right" also say the same about Bush for his own largely identical policies? Or is this just invective meant to say it's because of those darned other people, the bogeymen of the Right, that they should be relieved of feeling their own voter's remorse?

Obama is a center-right sort of guy

These terms are always subject to quibbling, based on who we are and what we expect. If your left is Stalin and your right is Bush, he's center right. If your left is McCain—as it is for many on the right now—Obama is a Marxist. Meanwhile, if you're Lunar, you're so far away from Obama or Bush that the two seem the same. I'm not sure this says much about Obama.

The only sane way to have a conversation is to pick some standard outside ourselves and our fixations. For example, by taking the spectrum as being contemporary American politicians who hold national elective office, he's clearly not "center-right" but "center-left" or (I think more accurately) "mid-left." On balance, he's the most liberal president we've had in quite some time—I'd say since Carter, as Clinton triangulated much more thoroughly.

I'll have to agree that Obama was the lesser of two evils... I'd also have to say that that has been my voting experience since I turned 18 (oh so many years ago). It seems that anyone who wants the office doesn't deserve it/shouldn't have it.

As to Obama having less experience than Palin... That may be so, but he definitely out ranked her in knowledge and intelligence.

What I have found most disturbing in Obama's time, is that he basically took no child left behind (a horrid piece of educational mandate) and made it worse. He could have actually helped education but instead he made it worse. I honestly didn't think that was possible.

I also find his refusal to get rid of the Patriot Act a very disturbing outcome. This is a piece of law I find to be excessively corrosive to our civil rights and essentially does little to no good in the safety department.

#6: "Obama is a center-right sort of guy."

#10: "The only sane way to have a conversation is to pick some standard outside ourselves and our fixations. For example, by taking the spectrum as being contemporary American politicians who hold national elective office, he's clearly not "center-right" but "center-left" or (I think more accurately) "mid-left."

As a novice in these discussions, I don't have a full understanding of the position (Left or Right) of many key political players (politicians or pundits alike). I would appreciate if someone can describe to me the political landscape in relative terms, starting with G.W. Bush and Obama.

As an example, from a scale of 10L (extreme left) to 10R (extreme right) with 0L = 0R = center, can we say:
- Bush is 5R (mid-right) and Obama is 5L (mid-left)? or
- Bill O'Reilly is 9R and Michael Moore is 9L?

As to Obama having less experience than Palin... That may be so, but he definitely out ranked her in knowledge and intelligence.

Prove it. Obama is an empty shirt that has failed in just about everything he has done.
Chicago Olympics bid-Fail!
Closing Gitmo - Fail!
Health care bill? - So badly handled the Dems lost Congress - Fail!
Stimulus Bill? - Billions wasted without any quantifiable benefit - Fail!

The man can't give the simplest speech without his teleprompter in front of him. He is worse than Bush when he tries to wing it.

12> Sometimes political labels just get in the way of reality. It's sometimes better to just assess the policy or strategy on its own merits or demerits rather than by its "ideological" position within a continuum of positions. My 2 cents.

But how can we judge people without our stereotypes, Theoria. That's just absurd.

You're right Jesse, it is absurd. What was I thinking?

Obviously, you weren't thinking at all.

Welcome to club. It's very nice to have you aboard.

Chicago Olympics bid-Fail!
Closing Gitmo - Fail!
Health care bill? - So badly handled the Dems lost Congress - Fail!
Stimulus Bill? - Billions wasted without any quantifiable benefit - Fail!

Really? Does Obama get the blame for everything here? The Olympics is a red herring, so forget that whole thing. As for the others. You could argue the stimulus kept things from getting worse, but since it wasn't the magical fix that made everything sunshine and lollipops, no one is really happy with it. I am sure if McCain had been elected we would be back to 3% unemployment and living like kings, but why argue about what-ifs. The reality is the economy is still bad and the stimulus did not go as well as hoped.

As for Gitmo and the Health Care Bill. I argue that has as much to do with the ineptness of the Dems as Obama's ineffectiveness as their leader. The Dem's had huge majorities in both houses and the WH and yet were still bullied and browbeat by the Republicans, their lies, exaggerations, and fabrications. Because they would not be unified, because they bickered and squabbled and would not stand behind their president, major concessions were made on every front and no strong stand could be made on almost any issue. The healthcare bill is crap, Obama could get no support for anything better, because the Dems are cowards. Gitmo remains open because the Dems could not convince the public it was for the best and let the Republicans win with scare tactics about terrorists in regular prisons. I am not saying Obama is great but if his party were such a bunch of pansies, they and perhaps we would not be in the sorry state they are now.

For all the problems I have with the Republicans, they have been (and this may change with whole tea party thing) a party that sticks together and stands by their leaders. They are effective, even if the effects are bad. Right now, they are doing well and I bet if they get the WH and majorities in 2012, they'll do a hell of a better job pushing their agenda on their own terms than the Dems have.

John Stewart joked after the 2008 elections that the Republicans didn't have to find a way to beat the Democrats, the Dems would find a way to beat themselves. He was right.

I also find his refusal to get rid of the Patriot Act a very disturbing outcome. This is a piece of law I find to be excessively corrosive to our civil rights and essentially does little to no good in the safety department.

I agree. Again, can he do this alone. No, but he doesn't seem too eager to either.

#14: "It's sometimes better to just assess the policy or strategy on its own merits or demerits rather than by its "ideological" position within a continuum of positions"

First of all, I would like to clarify that my attempt at "political labeling" by "ideological position" is for my own education so that I can better understand the person and interpret what (s)he says. There is no intent to assess or judge the merits/demerits of said positions.

It (the labelling) is important to me since they may say the same thing (e.g. limited government) but mean differently depending on their position.

And lastly, may I say without offending you, Theoria, that we cannot judiciously assess the merits/demerits of a policy/strategy in seperation with its champion/proponent(s). Without the people, such policy/strategy is just a string of words.

>18 Madcow299:

McCain would have done the same idiotic bail-outs and stimulus programs with the same success as Obama. Remember his suspending his campaign to push TARP? I voted third party last election as I thought neither were going to do a good job. And I agree with you that the Democratic congress is just as inept as POTUS. They manged to unify the Republicans and had the Independent vote join them as well. As bad as the Republicans may be, at least they are not Democrats.


And if Palin can get her daughter to the finals of 'Dancing with the Stars' then Obama could have done a better job getting the Olympics.

Now I hope I'm not misremembering things too badly, but I seem to recall that the US (and most of the world's) economy went into overt crisis around Sept 2008; before Obama won the election, much less took office, and that the basic outlines of the bailout were formulated under the Bush administration and implemented by essentially the same officials as had been working under the Bush administration.

That plan, the more or less continuous Bush/Obama bail out of the financial system did (as I understand it, perhaps I'm wrong) save the bacon for the world business system. Without the intervention we could very well have seen the whole system lock up for an extended period, instead of only for a few days or weeks.

So did the bailout work? Heck yeah! For a few days, the banksters were wearing their brown trousers and contemplating TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) but now they are back in glory. The system, for all its faults, is clumping along. There are still trucks on the road, your grocery store is being stocked, and although its not wonderful (ask the 99 ers) its not wall to wall hoover-ville and apple peddlers either.

How does the saying go? To those who have shall be given, and from those who have not shall be taken away even the little they do have. Situation normal, sort of.

Situation normal, sort of.

That's not the way that phrase goes, my bearish friend.

#19: "we cannot judiciously assess the merits/demerits of a policy/strategy in seperation with its champion/proponent(s)."

Point taken, but the left-right spectrum is still pretty much useless in that regard. The only thing that really helps contextualize such claims are an understanding of the individual themselves. For example, whatever I say about about the left and the right having mostly the same policies, you must keep in mind that I'm a political atheist. When someone like, say, modalursine says that the bailouts were a huge success, you must keep in mind that he's a Krugman fanboy. And so on.

19 >

It (the labelling) is important to me since they may say the same thing (e.g. limited government) but mean differently depending on their position.

This makes sense. However, I tend to be less interested in persons and more interested in the consequences of courses of actions that they propose. For example, if both George W. Bush and Barack Obama were to support a “path to citizenship” for undocumented workers, I’m not sure what is gained from figuring out whether this policy is conservative or liberal (for example) based on some imputed ideological attributes of George W. Bush or Barack Obama. A “path to citizenship” may mean different things to Bush and Obama personally, but what matters more to me is an assessment of the feasibility and consequences (including possible unintended consequences) of such a policy in comparison to another policy for dealing with the same issue.

And lastly, may I say without offending you, Theoria, that we cannot judiciously assess the merits/demerits of a policy/strategy in seperation with its champion/proponent(s). Without the people, such policy/strategy is just a string of words.

No offense taken. I think policy/strategy is action, or a proposition of action, a decision. Policies and strategies have their own logic that is not entirely controlled by any individual or group that proposes or enacts them. It frequently escapes from the constraints of their intentions. That’s why I don’t think being able to label proponents of this or that policy has any necessary import for the merits/demerits of the policy. But for me, this is an empirical question of the relation between people and policy/strategy, not one that can be resolved through speculation alone.

I think there is a tendency in American politics to rely on cognitive shortcuts (and I’m not saying that you are doing this), which short-circuit the more difficult thinking required to understand and analyze political reality and the possibilities and limits of the variety of courses of actions that could be undertaken. These cognitive shortcuts, as Lunar indicates, tend to be less than reliable since their truth content depends “on the eye of the beholder.” Insofar as there is no fixed meaning of left and right, conservative and liberal, and even moderate (“moderate” in relation to what?), the labels are, from one point of view, meaningless with respect to an assessment of policies. Of course, from another point of view, political or ideological labels are always meaningful, because politics has everything to do with labeling. In fact politics might be nothing else than labeling, because the creation of political groups depends on the making of distinctions (e.g. Tea Party versus RINOs or “establishment Republicans”), even those labeling practices that conform to what Freud called the narcissism of small differences. (Those who see no difference between the two political parties would probably apply Freud’s diagnosis to the impassioned efforts of the parties to claim they are fundamentally different from each other). I think both perspectives need to be entertained simultaneously; that ideological labels are both unreal, because there’s no inherent, objective basis for them, and real, because people believe they are real and act on that basis.

Another 10 cents.

Are you absolutely positive you don't have a younger sister out there somewhere, Theoria?

20 - Do you live in Chicago? Is this Olympic thing personal? :) Since when in the hell is the President responsible for getting the Olympics. Blame Oprah, blame Jerry Reinsdorf, blame Blagojevich, or blame the committee/group that was in charge of bringing the Olypmics there in the first place, but really it's not the Presidents job to get the Olympics. If that's what our president should really be concerned about, then I think we have lost our way.

24- Really well written Theoria, thanks.

Possibly off topic, but here goes:

Assessing whether a US politician is more "left" or more "right" can be a subjective business and I can see it boiling down to a cheer or a jeer. "Hoorah for Mr X, he's my kind of guy" or "Boo! Mr X is a an accursed member of the opposing tribe, the dog!"

Still, there seems to be some broad consensus among the talking heads when discussing the European political scene. Le Pen is "to the right of" , well, just about anyone I suppose. Merkel is this, and Sarkozy is that.

How does our domestic crew position wrt the European crowd? Is Palin or Whatzername from Arizona in the same box as the Birtish National Front? Is Obama to the left of the French CGT?

If we could "map" the US politicians against the backdrop of the European ones, at least there would be a more or less standard measure.

Jesse, sorry I don't. It's just another absurdity.

#23: The only thing that really helps contextualize such claims are an understanding of the individual themselves.

Yes, that is what I try to do. The problem is that I just start to read about American politics while many of you already have years if not decades involved with the subject.

#24: I think there is a tendency ... to rely on cognitive shortcuts (and I’m not saying that you are doing this) ...

Yes, I was trying to do just that to obtain a decent grasp of American politics in a shortest time possible . How foolish I was -:)

I like to thank both of you for the feedback and will continue to find smarter ways to get up to speed in order to have an intelligent conversation in this forum.

Btw, I understand that Krugman is a "liberal" in the European sense of "social democratic". Does it mean he is a 8L? .... just kidding!

Here's a paradox.

Where I live, in the UK, most of the people who call themselves Conservatives are not bothered by gay marriage, support socialized medicine, support a total ban on handguns and strict restrictions on other kinds of guns, suspect that the US invaded Iraq to steal their oil, and are only notionally religious, at most.

And yet, they would find kindred souls among American conservatives, and American liberals would probably find their soul-mates would be among those on the Left of the British political spectrum.

And this is because both liberalism and conservatism are best understood not as a commitment to a series of propositions about the world, but as dispositions. Historic context shapes the actual political positions held by the different parties (and that context is always changing).

Can we trade our conservatives for yours?

>32 krolik: Took the words out of my mouth.

I think there are numerous reasons why many of those who supported his candidacy are disappointed now. More than less I don't think a lot of people understand that legislation in whatever only finally comes to a kind of fruition after a lot of compromise--that's the way the legislating bodies are built. So it's not so much whatever legislation happened or didn't--at least for me.

Here's some problems in my eyes. 1) Iraq less so but Afghanistan is becoming his war. 2) his attorney general and his coterie of followers are just as paranoid about 'state secrets' and any real transparency in this administration in comparison to say the Bush 2 administration is a figment as can be seen in this wikileaks thing. 3) we're following the same old economic policies that have fucked us over time and time again. Not a surprise since many of his economic team come right out of the Clinton camp. Might as well just dig up Milton Friedman's dead body and let him run things. So called 'Free trade' has pretty much annihilated our manufacturing and industrial base--so let's do some more. In the meantime we'll add South Korea to Nafta, Cafta etc. etc. and end up outsourcing thousands of more jobs.. And in the meantime 4) we're not doing any rebuilding--creating good jobs--we're not investing in our infastructure apart from bailing out banks, insurance companies and the automakers. There's really no broad spectrum to investing even in energy apart from natural gas exploration which is pretty dodgy environmentally to begin with.

Obama was dealt a lousy hand by the previous administration and what we needed was a new New Deal. That was the nerve he struck back in the day when he was campaigning for president. Unfortunately we've just got more of the same crap-in domestic, foreign and economic policy. He hasn't really delivered on anything major apart from Health Care and the effect of whether that works well or not will not be known for a long time if it isn't upended in the meantime. If I were to grade him he would be around a D-.

"Prove it. Obama is an empty shirt that has failed in just about everything he has done.
Chicago Olympics bid-Fail!
Closing Gitmo - Fail!
Health care bill? - So badly handled the Dems lost Congress - Fail!
Stimulus Bill? - Billions wasted without any quantifiable benefit - Fail!"

NONE OF THESE THINGS EITHER PROVE OR DISPROVE HIS INTELLIGENCE OR HIS KNOWLEDGE.

ref #30
OK, lets go with this for a bit and see where it takes us.

Lets say the difference between Conservative and Liberal (lets not quibble, for the moment, about what the proper name for the opposite of "conservative" should be) is more nearly a disposition than it is a commitment to series of propositions.

How would you characterize those dispositions? What is a "conservative" disposition, and how does it differ from a more "liberal" disposition?

One fairly common idea by now is to plot attitudes in two dimensions; a personal freedom dimension on one axis (think "sex, drugs, and rock and roll"), and an economic freedom dimension on an orthogonal axis, where free markets, greater entrepreneur ship and "laisser faire" are greater as one moves along the exis in that direction, and total government control of the economy is at the "zero" mark. That allows for four major "types" with an unlimited amount of gradation between types.

As long as we're talking about personal dispositions, I remember reading somewhere (Sorry, source amnesia)
where our author claimed that "Liberals" care more about autonomy (doing your own thing) and perhaps about "Fairness" or "equality" whereas conservatives cared more about "pollution" or "contamination" (foreigners have cooties, English First, etc) and punishing cheaters and freeloaders (think "Welfare Queen").

Not that the attitudes are unique or distinctive to one political disposition or another, only that the groups vary in their emphasis on one or the other.

You're probably thinking of Jon Haidt's work, brother.

I wonder what the independent variable is this "work"; plus sampling error must be ubiquitous.

33>

1) Iraq less so but Afghanistan is becoming his war.

During the presidential campaign Obama out-hawked McCain on Afghanistan. It was clear he intended to escalate the US commitment there and he's done it. I suspect the "progressive left" simply ignored this stated intention, but it shouldn't be surprised about the fact that he followed through on it. The criticism should have come earlier. Having said that, I think as long as the executive branch perceives the world through the vision of a "war against terrorism," no matter what the ideology of the President, there will be more warfare. And unending warfare, since this sort of war has no foreseeable conclusion (analogous to fighting a war against war).

2) his attorney general and his coterie of followers are just as paranoid about 'state secrets' and any real transparency in this administration in comparison to say the Bush 2 administration is a figment as can be seen in this wikileaks thing.

States act like States. Hence, there's a limit to transparency. It's one thing to be "transparent" about domestic political processes. But it's a pipe dream to expect foreign policy and diplomacy to be conducted out in the open. For that to happen, there would need to be some kind of total change in the relations between nation states and until the wikileakatarians figure out how to pull that off, their information bombs will be like fireworks on the Fourth of July: loud and colorful, but ultimately ephemeral.

3) we're following the same old economic policies that have fucked us over time and time again. Not a surprise since many of his economic team come right out of the Clinton camp. Might as well just dig up Milton Friedman's dead body and let him run things. So called 'Free trade' has pretty much annihilated our manufacturing and industrial base--so let's do some more. In the meantime we'll add South Korea to Nafta, Cafta etc. etc. and end up outsourcing thousands of more jobs.. And in the meantime 4) we're not doing any rebuilding--creating good jobs--we're not investing in our infastructure apart from bailing out banks, insurance companies and the automakers.

Here is a definite shortcoming based on campaign claims about rebuilding "infrastructure." But one should note that Obama is hardly a socialist (and by this I mean something along the lines of European corporatist), so I don't know that a radically different form of economic policy can be expected. No expert knowledge here but I assume the manufacturing and industrial base is now part of American history, it's not coming back. Plus, people are no longer interested in producing and saving, they are acclimated to earning and consuming, which implies a different economic model than the one that dotted the landscape with smokestacks and satanic mills.

Where I've been disappointed in Obama is his inability to shape public opinion in support of the things he's attempted and succeeded in enacting. Whereas Bush was able to create a supportive environment for his military adventures in Iraq and afterwards with terror alerts and by ratcheting up fear in other ways (and like it or not, Bush succeeded in this, even if he resorted to less than truthful means), Obama has not sought to do something analogous for his "adventures" in health care reform, auto-maker bailouts, financial regulation (which admittedly isn't all that sexy), etc. But more generally, the Democrats have conceded the monopoly over the manipulation of public opinion to their opponents, which forces them to argue on other peoples' terms (e.g. wasting time refuting the existence of death panels). Obama was good at selling himself, but hasn't been good at selling his policies; the other Democratic leaders have also been inadequate in this area.

#38--Obama's campaign for presidency was a truly remarkable campaign. He articulated a vision that wasn't the same old same old. On the subject of transparency I guess it is too much to expect truth in advertising out of a politician of any stripe. It's the voters fault then if he/she doesn't have the required amount of cynicism to see through the charade. Put another way we have a media more and more beholden to government and less and less likely to challenge it--happier in fact to create personality cults--which is a step towards fascism at least in my own humble view. When someone has carte blanche to hide all kinds of activities behind a shroud of secrecy whenever and for whatever there is nothing that someone has to be accountable for. It's only a way of legitmiizing criminal behavior and Obama who is very adept in the law knows this.

As for either war--they drain the economy when we are already in a crisis. The peoples in both countries (apart from our puppets) do not want us there. Worthwhile and realizeable goals that can be attained in either case are at a minimum and not nearly worth the cost in troop losses, material losses or capital losses. It's not just a can't win situation--it's a never will win situation. It's spitting in the wind. I suspect like everything else the reason we're still in these messes are because of some compromises this administration has made to keep our allies and/or military leaders happy and/or they don't want to undermine the so called gains of the last administration.

He's not trying to look ahead anymore--he's dealing with (what passes for) the 'reality' of the present. That's fine with a lot of people who are only interested in the here and now--who want low taxes or no taxes and a static forever. The thing is if you don't plan and move towards a path to say 'energy independence' you're not to going to get there. If you don't clear the way for re-industrializing our economy--creating new future jobs you're not going to get there. The population of the United States is over 300 million now and growing. Last I looked at those numbers we were projected to hit 400 million by around 2038. We don't have enough jobs for 300 million and with advances in technology and the need for more education to get enough people into fields where they'll be productive things are only going to get more difficult. Making rich people even richer--expanding wealth disparity is not the frigging answer. That's what the GOP wants and the GOP even as the minority party out manuevered the Dems. And our debt is only going to rise if we continue to make the same kinds of trade agreements that have destroyed our industrial/manufacturing base. The path we're on is just not fucking rational.