Well, most people never called George W. Bush "brilliant", an "intellectual giant" or a "towering intellect". They're drooling over Obama, and he hasn't demonstrated even a Nixonian level of intellect. But using your comparison, it's hard to say. Obama is more well spoken, but in terms of ability to process information and arrive at a decision from the data absorbed? He hasn't shown me much other than that he's all trees and no forest. At least President Bush recognized the difference between right and wrong.
No it doesn't. Obama enjoyed the higest approval ratings of any president in the last 40 years when he took office. Where were those partisans then? A more believable explanation is republicans have seen Obama in action and really don't like it. Bailouts, massive spending, firing CEOs, racking up massive debts (as much as Reagan's 8 years in Obama's 1st year alone), determined to walk away from Iraq, surrendering to the terrorists in the war on terror, and that sort of thing.
All joking aside, the part that sticks out to me is that 27% of republicans approve of the "Bailouts, massive spending, firing CEOs, racking up massive debts (as much as Reagan's 8 years in Obama's 1st year alone), determined to walk away from Iraq, surrendering to the terrorists in the war on terror, and that sort of thing." Republican or Democrat or wherever in between, doesn't that sound a bit odd to you?
Since that was something Denny made up, it should sound a bit odd. Without looking, I'm pretty sure that wasn't what the survey asked. barfo
But since that's what has happened in the last 2 1/2 months (aside from "surrendering to the terrorists", which I thought was hyperbole), how isn't it relevant? I mean, if the survey is about one's approval/disapproval of the job the President has done, and those are the major deliverables so far, isn't that what one is approving/disapproving of?
I love what Obama is doing. I didn't want to start a new thread so I put it here . . . this being humble and trying to gather allies in a completely different way than Bush style . . . this is the change I was hoping for. In the end I think Obama will be judged on how he handles this deep recession, but I love the new attitude he is taking with other world leaders.
Something seems to have "changed". Just look at that first graph: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/us/politics/07poll.html?em I don't care what your political allegiance is. It's nice to see a little optimism creep in.
BTW--the third pie charts I don't put much stock in. Republicans loved to point out that although Bush's popularity was at historic lows, Democrats in Congress were even less popular. It was a silly comparison, because a single person (even a politician) is almost always going to be much more popular than a sizable mass of politicians. So now that the shoe's on the other foot and Obama is clearly more popular than Republicans in congress, it's equally silly to make much of it. It's just a nonsensical comparison, no matter which party has the presidency.
I'm curious how the second plot would look if it were split out by original Obama supporters versus non-supporters. I think these plots just show peoples' bias, and blind support for their respective party decisions. At the time of the election, I would have rated myself as a non-supporter of Obama, but curious and optimistic that he would be able to rally the country with his charisma and charm, and inject some optimism. Now, that charisma and charm is what is really scaring me because he is convincing people that this enormous debt he is racking up is good for the country.
I don't agree in the least. Optimism for wrong-headed policies are about the WORST thing for a country. I hate to play the Hitler card, but I guarantee that there was a ton of optimism in Germany heading into the 1940's. I'd rather have policies I don't strongly disagree with and some general emotional upset than people excited over the federal government doing what it's doing. Ed O.
Naturally, if you don't like the policies, you don't want people to be happy about them. I hate it when people play the Hitler card, so I won't address that. Somebody is bound to divert this thread for three pages on Hitler. However, the policies are going to happen anyway, no matter what most Americans think. Obama has four years before he's going to be held accountable for anything, so he probably wouldn't be swayed much by current polls. Given that policy will be what it'll be for at least another year or two, and given that psychology is a huge part of our economy, isn't it a good thing that Americans are feeling more optimistic about the future? Would you really rather have (in your mind) crappy policies and depressed people, or crappy policies and optimistic people? Because your real preference (Ed O policies and optimistic people) isn't an option.
I would prefer outraged people. I would prefer that people are outraged at this spending and debt that is going to cripple our country. If the spending continues like it is projected, people will not be optimistic when our debt is destroying our country. If people are depressed about our economy now, how will they feel when our dollar is worth nothing?
Now this is a fair point that is easy to understand and accept. I personally don't agree with it much, but it's helpful to see where others are coming from. If you think that "being humble and trying to gather allies in a completely different way" was something that you wanted from the President, it's easy and helpful to see why you like what's going on. Personally, I see this humility as something you're seeing exploited by people in leadership positions around the world who aren't as nice and friendly and forgiving. In my attempt to tie this point to one of Maris' oft-brought-up points, you cannot expect that people from around the world, with very dissimilar backgrounds, morals, mores, ways of life, etc. would live by the Golden Rule as well just because you do. Just in the last 9 months you've seen Russia, Venezuela, Iran, the Palestinian state, North Korea and China flex their muscles in one way or another (all of which were against UN rules, stated treaty agreements or destabilization policies) to see what they could get away with in the Court of World Opinion. Without the US to stand up to them (though Sarkozy's at least trying in a couple of cases) and put them in their place early, it leads to things later on that are at best nuisances and at worst get people killed.
It helps when you don't have one political party constantly talking down the economy to win an election. The Democrats spent eight years tearing down the Bush Administration just to regain power, to hell with the country. Both parties have scumbags, but the actions of Pelosi and Reid were beyond shameful, especially in their outright politicizing of a war.
Obama's policies are full of paradox to me. N. Korea launches a missile that made it 2,000 miles, next day Obama slashes funding for missile defense (it's a trivial % of govt. spending at that). Another example? Raise taxes on those making > $250K, yet try to put a ceiling on executive compensation (e.g. when there's no rich to tax, guess who they're coming after). Then there's the massive spending and the concept of investing in things like health care. Our liabilities for Medicare alone are going to bankrupt us without that massive spending - we'll have zero flexibility down the road as whatever debt service we have to pay (even at 0% interest) is going to crowd out spending for any kind of social programs. Social Security is all but dead by the time most of us retire (maybe I'll see a little of it for a few years). At 0% interest, a $10T debt (it's going to be way bigger than that) and a 10 year T-Bill to pay it off means $1T/year out of the treasury. Considering the budget is $3.5T already, that's about 1/3 of that unavailable to build a bridge, pave a road, build a hospital, finance a poor kid's college education, maintain our military, pay SS or medicare, etc. Then there's the whole bailout thing. Buying toxic assets means giving the banks money while depriving people of property or driving them out of their homes so somebody's big campaign donors can buy it for cents on the dollar. You'd think that maybe there's a little merit in doing something to keep the assets from becoming toxic in the first place, or more assets from becoming toxic. But noooooo.
it was the bush administration that did the tearing, and the democrats failed by not doing more to stand up to them.
The world is full of things that aren't purely black or white. Like Obama, for one. The two have little to do with each other. The chances of North Korea attacking us by ICBM is pretty remote. Lil' Kim is crazy, but he's not a suicide bomber. And the chances of star wars actually working is pretty remote too, despite all the money that's been thrown at it since the Reagan era. And, you know, I'll bet in a paragraph or two you'll be complaining about how much Obama is spending. So here's some taxpayer money he's saving. What percentage of people making over $250K work for a firm that's been bailed out? I'd guess pretty tiny. Which is probably why we won't pay it off in 10 years. I think it's a wee bit late to prevent the assets from becoming toxic, don't you? And the point of buying the toxic assets is to keep the banks from failing. Lots of failing banks is a bad thing. And as for keeping more assets from becoming toxic, that's what the whole spending plan is about. Trying to lift the economy up so that there aren't (as many) more defaults. Now, I know some of you of the live-and-let-die philosophy want to just let everything that is going to fail, fail now. What I haven't ever heard any of you say is how we climb back out of the economic crater that results. I guess we could start WWIII? barfo
