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Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the party he leads — believes on virtually any issue. The president tells us he prefers a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction, one that weds “revenue enhancements” (a weak way of describing popular taxes on the rich and big corporations that are evading them) with “entitlement cuts” (an equally poor choice of words that implies that people who’ve worked their whole lives are looking for handouts). But the law he just signed includes only the cuts. This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling. He announces in a speech on energy and climate change that we need to expand offshore oil drilling and coal production — two methods of obtaining fuels that contribute to the extreme weather Americans are now seeing. He supports a health care law that will use Medicaid to insure about 15 million more Americans and then endorses a budget plan that, through cuts to state budgets, will most likely decimate Medicaid and other essential programs for children, senior citizens and people who are vulnerable by virtue of disabilities or an economy that is getting weaker by the day. He gives a major speech on immigration reform after deporting a million immigrants in two years, breaking up families at a pace George W. Bush could never rival in all his years as president.

THE real conundrum is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit. That a large section of the country views him as a socialist while many in his own party are concluding that he does not share their values speaks volumes — but not the volumes his advisers are selling: that if you make both the right and left mad, you must be doing something right.

SuperHornet wrote:I'm shocked.

I would have figured the Times to ride Obama's jock.

Ivytalk wrote:Read the whole damn whiny article. Ten minutes I'll never get back. Blueballs was right, as usual.

blueballs wrote:

SuperHornet wrote:I'm shocked.

I would have figured the Times to ride Obama's jock.

Basically what they're saying is that he's not liberal enough... what a shocker!!!! I predicted it before I even opened the thread.

JMU DJ wrote:

Ivytalk wrote:Read the whole damn whiny article. Ten minutes I'll never get back. Blueballs was right, as usual.

I figured you guys would like it as I took away that he's been a spineless, two faced waffler who has pretty much stood for nothing and everything at the same time in attempt to ride the center and be the great compromiser/appeaser. Huh, that's odd... guess the link I provided went to MoveOn.org. Sorry about that.

Cap'n Cat wrote:Good article, yes. Ain't America grand?

The man is still slated for Leavenworth in 15 years.

Ivytalk wrote:Read the whole damn whiny article. Ten minutes I'll never get back. Blueballs was right, as usual.

Cap'n Cat wrote:Good article, yes. Ain't America grand?

The man is still slated for Rushmore in 15 years.

The most charitable explanation is that he and his advisers have succumbed to a view of electoral success to which many Democrats succumb — that “centrist” voters like “centrist” politicians. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated. Centrist voters prefer honest politicians who help them solve their problems. A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

blueballs wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:Good article, yes. Ain't America grand?

The man is still slated for Rushmore in 15 years.

His own EPA would never allow the "defacing" of mountain like that.

dbackjon wrote:

blueballs wrote:
His own EPA would never allow the "defacing" of mountain like that.

Unless there was coal there.

dbackjon wrote:

blueballs wrote:
His own EPA would never allow the "defacing" of mountain like that.

Unless there was coal there.

ASUG8 wrote:I'm objective enough to recognize that he didn't create every issue he's currently dealing with, but good leaders make sound judgements regarding the hands they are dealt MOST of the time. He's entitled to errors in judgement, but he has developed a laundry list of poor responses to major, impactful issues. I think most people, if they truly attempt to be objective and attempt to balance the positives vs. the negatives of his decisions during his presidency would find that he has demonstrated that he is in over his head.