Obama a total screw up?

With what's being done with children from Central America--they're flooding into Texas and our government is dumping them into Arizona in conditions so bad that Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery has said "Do you realize we treat terrorists in Gitmo better than these kids?--as well as Obama's many other mishaps, can anyone really argue Obama isn't a total screw up?

. . . can anyone really argue Obama isn't a total screw up?

That's what Fox News tells me, so it must be true.

Obama in a vacuum?

Bush-haters like me hoped for more than we should intelligently have hoped for. Obama should have used the media to obtain what he said he would. Gitmo was not closed because of the Republicans, but Obama made a promise and should have found a way to keep it.
Obama improved health care somewhat, that much is clear. Insurance companies are thriving. Seems like presidential behavior to me.
Wars: Obama started none, but embraced techniques that are certainly war crimes--drone strikes, especially in non-combatant countries.
Immigration: no self-loving Republican can fault Obama in any regard on this issue.
Obama's administration is looking more and more like the best of Carter and the worst of Clinton. He certainly is not history book material. But, as many here would claim, the alternatives have been worse. Bad times for the USA.

#3--a fair analysis.

>3 RickHarsch:: the best of Carter and the worst of Clinton

A succinct and near perfect analysis.

I just hope everyone on SCOTUS stays healthy, and we then retire/return the entire admin corps to cozy academic departs, where they can live out their lives in comfort. Ending with a whimper and not a bang (one hopes).

All presidents reach the uh "tired of him" point and then because the "millennium" hasn't arrived under his watch he's a loser; these attitudes affected contemporary perceptions of FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and so on as well as per Obama which is why I had sympathy for John Connelly's proposal during the '80 campaign that prezes ought to be elected to ONE six year term as that's about the limit of the public's tolerance for them.

FDR of course "refreshed" with the advent of WWII and people's nervousness about being in a major war without the old master and eight or so years after Eisenhower left office Murray Kempton wrote a piece on his presidency saying that at least "we" didn't have the Vietnam war, race riots, burning cities and "student unrest" when Ike was prez; Kempton, a liberal, thought Eisenhower looked pretty good in comparison with what followed.

Carter is usually overrated by those who dislike Reagan and Clinton by those who dislike George W but I think Obama has done better than BOTH of those predecessors; mostly because he saved "US" as well as the rest of the world from The Great Depression, Part Two, for which he gets little credit but he will from "historians" you betcha.

"Nothing's perfeck"; re Franklin Roosevelt say "court packing" and re Truman say "takeover of the coal mines" and re Eisenhower say "Iran and Guatemala" and re Kennedy "bay of Pigs" and Johnson well you know and Nixon oy vey! But then they ALL had major accomplishments that affect folks for the better even today.

By the way it's GHWBush's ninetieth birthday today and even he isn't as bad as he's supposed to be...

In the case of Iraq--the US and whatever allies it can muster might feel compelled to have to go back in with troops on the ground. Things are looking really shitty for the regime in power there now. They will at least be calling out the USAF to bomb the crap out of the place again and you can figure the drone attacks are going to multiply many times. Bush II, of course, started it all. He's fucked off on his horse to his dude ranch in Texas. American middle east policy revolves around its favorites of Israel and Saudi Arabia. It's been that way for decades. This shit isn't likely to just go away. They'll not want power to fall to an Al Queda friendly new regime in Iraq. With the potential for losing massive oil reserves. With the potential of hostility in the entire region being ratcheted up many, many times--spilling over borders. There are many American fundamentalist rapture happy christians who will be giddy over the prospect of a real armageddon. They think the lord will come--the jews will convert and there will be a thousand years of peace and happiness. Almost as screwy as suicide bombers believing when they get to the great beyond that they'll be fucked continually for all eternity by 100 beautiful virgins. IMO if Obama had a clue he would have hung Bush and Cheney from a tree for war crimes instead of letting them walk off scot free while he was stuck with cleaning their mess.

7 I had those dreams of an end to US exceptionalism...

#8--well that didn't happen and is not going to. We are the 'good' guys and as the 'good' guys that means we have to make sure that anyone that doesn't toe the line--the 'bad' guys better get back in line or they'll be clobbered. Obama hasn't really changed much in that regard. We are the exception and we are the rule at least until someone knocks us off our pedestal which historically always happens sooner or later. The sad fact for me of the Bush/Cheney Iraqi adventure is that it was all done for one reason to make tons of $ for them and all their friends by gaining control of Iraq's energy reserves and meanwhile they used taxpayer money--much of it borrowed against future years to stuff the pockets of major corporations who wanted in on the action. All the killing and the maiming whether American/coalition forces--so-called terrorists or innocent civilians--all of it was what I'd call collateral damage. The target was Iraqi wealth and people had to die to get at it.

Well the United States is the world's most powerful country; it's hardly going to "retire" and its influence is much more positive than say that of Russia, China or the coagulation of bitterness and brutality that passes for the "Islamic world" from north Africa to central Asia. It'd be like insisting Stalin or Mao was a "humanist" while Truman was the real brute -- the history does NOT back that up.

Obama wasn't going to be McGovern -- hell McGovern probably wasn't going to be "McGovern" (another anniversary to ponder -- the fortieth of the publication of Woodward's and Bernstein's "All The President's Men" and the subsequent Nixon resignation on August 9 1974); and Reagan was only a better version of Carter and W a worse one of Clinton but yeah if you want a "pristine" president I guess it would have to be William Henry Harrison although you must absolve him of the battle of Tippecanoe and the destruction of the "Tecumseh confederation" some decades before.

The difficulty re Iraq -- I mean I actually went to Iraq in 2002 as a member of one of Kathy Kelly's "Voices in the Wilderness" delegations and returned to attempt to persuade Americans (in my locality at the time, La Crosse Wisconsin and environs) NOT to support an invasion.

I soon discovered I convinced NO ONE of what he and she did not already believe, one way or the other, but I recall that Obama as an Illinois state senator once spoke at an anti Iraq war rally in Chicago (I MIGHT have been there but sigh! I wasn't listening!) saying he was "against DUMB wars" and he considered Iraq such. I think he was proven right.

Saddam Hussein held a country cobbled together by the British in 1920 with an Arabian king (Faisal, aka Alec Guinness in David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia"), dominated by sunnis but with a shi'ite majority usually living in extreme poverty (still so when I went to Basra in '02) and a Kurdish population in the north agreeing to leave Baghdad alone if it could be allowed to harass the Turks.

Saddam held it together with oppressive measures but permitted a certain amount of "modernism" (women in the large cities didn't need to wear hijabs or "veils" and in the wealthy neighborhood in Baghdad I saw young girls in tight blue jeans), i. e., "secularism." Sure he was a brutal guy but he controlled the country and had nothing to do with 9-11; all he "wanted" was Kuwaiti oil eh and in the '80s the US "liked" him for keeping Iran "busy" with a smaller but deadly version of World War I, trenches and poison gas included.

"W's war" so to speak essentially made Iraq safe for Iran; in fact it seems that Tikrit (Saddam's home town, also the great Saladin's hmm) has been retaken by the Iranian "al Quds" militia and that Iran, not the US, will be providing most of the aid to hold Baghdad which is a far more problematic target for this barbaric "ISIS" group than was Mosul.

Republicans sputter (i. e., John McCain, who by the way should take note of Cantor's upset) but if the GOPpers REALLY wish to run this fall or in 2016 on a "return to Iraq" well I encourage them to do so; I'd LOVE to see more Democrats elected! Most likely this will turn out to be a "Who lost Iraq?" or part of it as per the "Who lost China?" bit Repubs pummeled in the late 1940s and early '50s -- Joe McCarthy's favorite time but hey what works, even for a relatively short period, "works," especially in election politics which is a right on the moment proposition.

Obama has done some sputtering too and maybe we'll have air strikes and yes drone strikes but NO combat troops playing "Mission Resumed" -- thank the voters for that...

> 10

Obama: Best POTUS since Bill Clinton.

Argue with THAT if you can, homeboy.

In preventing (with Bush) great recession from becoming depression, removing us from two wars, rescuing GM, providing (with Pelosi) affordable accessible healthcare, brain research initiative, and acting on climate change via mpg standards and coal plant emissions, President Obama has MY thanks, at least. (Not to mention helpful executive positions on DOMA, medical marijuana, etc.) Wish more had been possible on immigration, Medicare, income inequity, Middle East peace, rational gun laws, etc., but consider who he had to work with...

Paul Krugman: Yes, He Could.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/opinion/paul-krugman-health-care-and-climate-p...

He's no FDR. We could use another FDR IMO.

11> Not much to be better than, including Clinton. How about who is the best POTUS since Truman, the last president who said what he thought and what he meant and had any guts.

12> You don't know much about AHC if you think it's affordable.

Affordable for people of limited means and with pre-existing health conditions, that's for sure!

>16 margd: Affordable for people of limited means and with pre-existing health conditions

That in itself is huge. It's already changed the lives of several people I know.

They are reporting that 95% of Minnesotans now have health care coverage:

http://www.startribune.com/business/262726381.html

I was in a coffee shop a few weeks back and a guy standing there looked up at the TV (CNN I think) and said "That Obama is the worst president in this country's history!"

Biting, I said, "How does he compare to Fillmore?" He gave me this crazy look. "How the Hell should I know?" he said, annoyed. I said, "Well, if you're saying he's the worst of the 44 men who've held that office I figured you were making a comparison. Like, if I were to say I was the tallest man in this room, I would do so after assessing the heights of all the other people--that's what a comparison is, see? If you're saying he's the worst I assume that you've broken down the other 43 presidencies. How about Harding--how's Obama stand up to his presidency? How about Buchanan--or Grant? Or Pierce for that matter... how's Obama compare to Franklin Pierce?"

Needless to say he just shrugged like I was crazy.

And believe me, I don't expect people to know all the US Presidents legacies to make comparisons. I don't.

But the truth is pretty clear: many of those who "hate" Obama have a reason that has very little to do with the decisions he's made.

Personally I don't hate him, I feel sorry for him. He's in way over his head.

19>

Compared to whom? Name a President that wasn't over his head in one way or another.

>19 CharlesBoyd: Given your faith in the cartoon version of Harry Truman I can understand how you can slap a cliche on a president that has no meaning.

it is the ones that do not realise they are in over their head that cause the real problems.

>18 jasonseidner: "But the truth is pretty clear: many of those who "hate" Obama have a reason that has very little to do with the decisions he's made."

You could tell your entire story about being in a coffee shop in 2003 or 2005 when someone remarked, "Bush is the worst president in this country's history!" Is that because that person "hates" Bush for reasons that have very little to do with the decisions he's made? Probably -- the hatred flows from the very fact that the politician is of the *other* tribe.

>23 nathanielcampbell: In a coffee shop in 2003 I was generally surrounded by Slovenes and we were all in agreement that Bush and cronies were committing serial war crimes. There was no need to question his ranking as president, though there was occasion to compare him with other war criminals from this neighborhood, and recently, and others of the 20th century.

Or, no, 23, that is not what post 18 was about.

On 18:
Well, in fairness to Franklin Pierce (D, NH), he couldnʻt have known that he was appointing the future president of the Confederacy as the Unionʻs Secretary of War (in retrospect, the most ridiculous feature of his administration). Perhaps he did suspect
secession as a risk of the near future, and was sort of "buying time". His way of "confronting" secession, itʻs true was anything but military, or even hardball political confrontation. The next president had not just the prospect but the reality of secession, and didnʻt go beyond FPʻs idea of confrontation.
And then his (reputed at the time) alcoholism: itʻs not his fault that there was as yet no Alcoholics Anonymous, nor
even any such thing as a diagnosis of "alcoholic".

9/11 and the Iraq war and acting, walking and talking as if he were brain-damaged puts G. Bush, Jr. in the running for the worse POTUS ever.

I don't see how whatever fuck-ups committed by Obama have not been greatly outweighed by his positive actions - e.g., finally doing something positive regarding health care insurance, ending one war and soon to end the other, not getting us into any more wars, killing Osama Bin Laden, saving GM and millions of jobs, getting us back out of the Bush recession, getting the gay thing out of the way for all time, and not generally acting like a complete fool - like McCain - or a total useless asshole - like Romney.

The U.S. has dodged several bullets lately, all to the credit of Obama.

Someone doesn't like Obama? Someone gets their jollies trashing his name? So the fuck what? Why should I care? Why would ANYONE with a god damn fully-functioning brain CARE?

Obama, for whatever good he has done, is a war criminal as well. His drone program alone should have him in the Hague. Every time he bombed in Pakistan was a war crime. The assassinations in Yemen, especially of the 16 year old, will haunt him forever.
Within a week of office, his US military killed over 40 civilians in Afghanistan.

That out of the equation, I largely agree with Obama supporters above. But how do you take the slaughter of innocents out of an equation?

I can only relate my experience with Obamacare. My perfectly good BlueCross insurance was cancelled. I had to chose a new plan from those offered by three vendors and two of their subsidiaries. My premium for a bronze plan is 40% a month more than what I was paying -that's expected to rise- and my out-of-pocket expenses jumped 300%. I no longer go to the doctor. Fuck Obama.

#20 Compared to whom? Name a President that wasn't over his head in one way or another.

Possibly Eisenhower. Critics of him have long said he was a "caretaker" president because nothing really bad happened when he was in office. Recently there is a bit of a change in that thought. There's a growing body of historians who say nothing happened because of him, not that he was sort of lucky that nothing happened.

I'm willing to concede some of Obama's accomplishments, but I want to puke every time someone like JGL53 says Obama killed Osama Bin Laden. Obama was sitting on his skinny butt in the White House when Bin Laden was killed. What recent president wouldn't have done the same? Anyone who doesn't think Bush Jr. wouldn't have done it must be smoking some of that stuff they recently legalized in Colorado.

RickHarsch
I don't have a cartoon vision of Harry Truman. I've read quite a bit about him and I don't think he was perfect, just way more honest than most presidents. Look up some of his accomplishments and you might be amazed.

29 In point of fact, Bush Junior DIDN'T do it (kill bin Laden/have him killed), and in fact had the balls to say that wasn't what the US was after as early as fall 2001. What he meant was the US was after re-ordering the Middle-East and had its excuse to go to war, or where bin Laden wasn't quite enough had the petrie dish in which to manufacture a casus belli.

HST: '...Truman, the last president who said what he thought and what he meant and had any guts.' That's a cartoon version of a Kansas City machine politician with a foreign policy run by Dulles' and the earliest nuke hawks. Truman used nuclear weapons and bought into the bizarre, bond-villain notion that a country could have all the nukes and rule the world, setting the US on a path that wavered on destruction for decades. On the home front he hadn't the 'guts' to tame McCarthy. His decision to allow the US to go to Korea was a disaster.

Truman the cartoon president said what he thought and what he meant and had guts. Truman did not.

#29--One of the bad things that happened during Eisenhower's time in office was the CIA plotted overthrow of Mossadegh's Iranian government which led to the Shah's dictatorship which led to the Ayatollah Khomeini which has led to further decades of hostility between Iran and the United States and it was pretty much all about oil even back then. As I remember it--Mossadegh decided that British Petroleum had been taking out the major resource of his country for bare minimal recompense for so long that he decided to nationalize the oil fields which led to Her Majesty's Govt. plotting his assassination which was uncovered which led to the British Embassy being shut down and all their people (including spies) being sent home which led actors on behalf of Her Majesty's Govt. going to actors of our govt. looking for a way of getting their sweetheart deal back in place for a price which led to Eisenhower through his CIA director Dulles sending Kermit Roosevelt on a CIA mission to Iran to cause unrest which led to the overthrow of the Iranian govt. which led to us getting a sweetheart oil deal from the Shah when he became dictator.

And then there was the overthrow of the Arbenz Guatemalan govt. for having the temerity to nationalize land belonging to the United Fruit Company--much of which the United Fruit Company pretty much didn't use and had no intention of using and with a large % of the Guatemalan population dirt poor peasant farmers. Nonetheless the head of the United Fruit Company was adamant that what was his was his and that that amounted to pretty much an attack on a US citizen and his property rights. So we overthrew Arbenz too and installed another dictator in his place.

That's a couple things about Eisenhower.

Anyway just taking away that overthrow of the Mossadegh govt. and we probably would today have a far, far, far, far more peaceful middle eastern part of the world. We do love our surrogate dictators in other countries.

Eisenhower also oversaw the further consolidation of the military-industrial complex that he famously warned against. What the fuck was he talking about? And what better representative of that particular US brand of fascism than the intertwining of the United Fruit Company and Eisenhower's government?

And, of course, the Bay of Pigs plan was hatched by Eisenhower's people and the protagonists were given their promise and momentum under him.

32/33 >

Thank you for those fine examples. While I'm a fan of Eisenhower otherwise--mostly for the fact that he taxed the richest of the rich 92% so as to keep the economy "fair and balanced" (gee--I wonder if Republicans would elect him TODAY?)--I'll admit you're dead on: the fact that he orchestrated the overthrowing of two DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED governments is something I can never just "overlook" when evaluating Presidents.

CharlesBoyd >

My point was that you and many others seem to hold Obama to a standard that doesn't exist. You can name virtually any president and history will show similar flaws, similar backlash about acts or decisions.

So I ask again: when you suggest Obama is a "total screw up", to whom (or to what standard) are you comparing him?

#34--Iran is a good example of how shit your country does some 50 years ago can still haunt you today even if the majority of the population have little or no idea of how it all began and just accept whatever today's leaders tell them about how bad they all are there. GWB the second categorizing them as a state amongst his axis of evil. GWB the second I'm very sorry to say was and still is a fucking asshole.

"Nothing turns out the way it's supposed to" -- especially re the presidency it seems.

I mean with even FDR you "factor in" the internment of Americans of Japanese descent who committed no "crimes" (but being of Japanese descent) as well as the court packing scheme and Roosevelt's rather uh "circuitous" and even mendacious efforts to bring a decidedly reluctant country into world war the second, a war for which it was hardly prepared.

Franklin Pierce I'm sure had no desire to hasten a civil war -- nor did Stephen A. Douglas -- but the Kansas-Nebraska act and "state sovereignty" did so: they made Lincoln a Republican and a candidate determined to break "the slave power."

Lincoln "saved the union" but suspended habeas corpus and suppressed dissent in the north, made Wall Street with his need for quick contracts to provide (often inadequate and "shoddy") materiel for his massive armies, appointed a number of "political" generals who proved incompetent or at least "lacking," causing the deaths of thousands, got money for the war by allowing a conscript to "buy" his way out with $300 or provide a "substitutute," guaranteeing that rich boys like John D. Rockefeller didn't have to risk their precious skins but some poor Irish lad from New York or wherever did.

"Nobody's perfeck" and "political necessity" makes that inevitable. It was Stalin's argument too sure but if the choice is between "Stalin" and "FDR" (and it usually is, meaning you don't get Gene Debs or Norman Thomas) I choose FDR.

No country -- no matter how "placid" it may be today -- has a "pristine" history. And even Jesus gets awfully upset and says some real nasty things because Jews won't believe he's the son of God...

> 29 "...Obama was sitting on his skinny butt in the White House when Bin Laden was killed. What recent president wouldn't have done the same? Anyone who doesn't think Bush Jr. wouldn't have done it must be smoking some of that stuff they recently legalized in Colorado..."

> 31 "....In point of fact, Bush Junior DIDN'T do it (kill bin Laden/have him killed), and in fact had the balls to say that wasn't what the US was after as early as fall 2001. What he meant was the US was after..."

And here's a video to watch for those of you who aren't that good at reading:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJmFkbBjbO0

Bush was and is a fucking fool.

It is hard to admire a fucking fool.

It is for me, in any event.

> 27

E.g., innocents were slaughtered in Japan in the two nuclear attacks back in '45.

It happens in war.

Was Truman a war criminal? Yeah? OK.

Think and say what you want. No one has to take your moral outrage seriously.

I don't.

>38 JGL53: You don't seem to be taken very seriously here, but just to see how you explain this: I mentioned the death by drone of a 16 year old boy in Yemen (never explained), a country the US is not at war with. What is your response to that specifically?

Personally I don't fall for all this shit called collateral damage--even targeting the 'bad guys' is a very touchy prospect--who gets to decide who is good and bad? and what gives them the right and what are their criteria?--nor do I think the USA should think of itself as the world's policeman. There is no good reason for our military to be in so many places. There are plenty of bad ones.

American (multinational) business interests are driving this stuff. The last thing a multinational gives a shit about is spreading democracy. The US primary reason for being in the middle eastern region at all is 'oil'. We depleted our own reserves--now we need someone else's.

> 39, 40

That Mahatma Gandhi shit can only take you so far, then someone WILL get blown up by a drone. It is just a question of who, when and where.

Motherfuckers who sow the wind WILL reap the whirlwind, sooner or later. This includes individual motherfuckers and not just rogue motherfucker countries. It is the way the world works.

If you find you just can't stand it all then you are free to hop a celestial elevator out of here. We will miss your complaining but somehow the rest of us will get by with our non-support of your dreamy imagined perfect order.

I don't believe I have anything else to say on this subject to youse guys.

Yes. Yes, I am sure I don't.

The end.

#41--well I can only say I'll miss you.

> See what happens when the guy is asked to be specific. Well, as a fan of the bizarre...

There are innumerable "indefensible" tragedies occurring every day; granted they are indeed "someone's fault." But SOME are defensible even if the said "defense" is not satisfying or convincing -- hence we have wars...