I couldn't and can't stand the guy, but I will try a balanced analysis Pros Though 9/11 happened almost a year into his watch (a fact the right likes to ignore) there were no more terrorist attacks on his watch, and that is not insignificant Though Iraq was entered into on lies and deceit, and was a disaster for a long time, it may turn out OK. Whether it was worth the cost is very doubtful though. Libya was a win Cons Loss of prestige worldwide Creation of far more enemies than friends North Korea got the bomb on his watch Iran more nuclearized on his watch Afghanistan a wash and it should have been a win Abu Gahrib Most of all, losing our values and pandering to fear was horrible Overall, I don't think he made us safer, I think he made us less safe.
I'm afraid that if we didn't pass the stimulus package, we'd be in deeper shit than we are now. There's no fear mongering in politics.
How does it feel to be lied into a stimulus package with no stimulus to it? This article is pretty interesting... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124451592762396883.html#printMode The Media Fall for Phony 'Jobs' Claims The Obama Numbers Are Pure Fiction. By WILLIAM MCGURN Tony Fratto is envious. Mr. Fratto was a colleague of mine in the Bush administration, and as a senior member of the White House communications shop, he knows just how difficult it can be to deal with a press corps skeptical about presidential economic claims. It now appears, however, that Mr. Fratto's problem was that he simply lacked the magic words -- jobs "saved or created." "Saved or created" has become the signature phrase for Barack Obama as he describes what his stimulus is doing for American jobs. His latest invocation came yesterday, when the president declared that the stimulus had already saved or created at least 150,000 American jobs -- and announced he was ramping up some of the stimulus spending so he could "save or create" an additional 600,000 jobs this summer. These numbers come in the context of an earlier Obama promise that his recovery plan will "save or create three to four million jobs over the next two years." Mr. Fratto sees a double standard at play. "We would never have used a formula like 'save or create,'" he tells me. "To begin with, the number is pure fiction -- the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being 'saved.' And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it." Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama's jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved." As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs." Nice work if you can get away with it. And get away with it he has. However dubious it may be as an economic measure, as a political formula "save or create" allows the president to invoke numbers that convey an illusion of precision. Harvard economist and former Bush economic adviser Greg Mankiw calls it a "non-measurable metric." And on his blog, he acknowledges the political attraction. "The expression 'create or save,' which has been used regularly by the President and his economic team, is an act of political genius," writes Mr. Mankiw. "You can measure how many jobs are created between two points in time. But there is no way to measure how many jobs are saved. Even if things get much, much worse, the President can say that there would have been 4 million fewer jobs without the stimulus." Mr. Obama's comments yesterday are a perfect illustration of just such a claim. In the months since Congress approved the stimulus, our economy has lost nearly 1.6 million jobs and unemployment has hit 9.4%. Invoke the magic words, however, and -- presto! -- you have the president claiming he has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs. It all makes for a much nicer spin, and helps you forget this is the same team that only a few months ago promised us that passing the stimulus would prevent unemployment from rising over 8%. It's not only former Bush staffers such as Messrs. Fratto and Mankiw who have noted the political convenience here. During a March hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus challenged Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the formula. "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," said the Montana Democrat. "If the economy loses two million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs. You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct." Now, something's wrong when the president invokes a formula that makes it impossible for him to be wrong and it goes largely unchallenged. It's true that almost any government spending will create some jobs and save others. But as Milton Friedman once pointed out, that doesn't tell you much: The government, after all, can create jobs by hiring people to dig holes and fill them in. If the "saved or created" formula looks brilliant, it's only because Mr. Obama and his team are not being called on their claims. And don't expect much to change. So long as the news continues to repeat the administration's line that the stimulus has already "saved or created" 150,000 jobs over a time period when the U.S. economy suffered an overall job loss 10 times that number, the White House would be insane to give up a formula that allows them to spin job losses into jobs saved. "You would think that any self-respecting White House press corps would show some of the same skepticism toward President Obama's jobs claims that they did toward President Bush's tax cuts," says Mr. Fratto. "But I'm still waiting." Write to MainStreet@wsj.com
It may be overly simplistic, but a relatively fair analysis. While I deplore appeasement, Bush's "carry a big stick" policy alienated us in a very negative way. I think that thus far Obama has done a good job of trying to earn us back some respect. Or at least as much as we can muster.
Only Denny can come into a thread about Bush's foreign policy and post an article blasting Obama's stimulus bill and pretend it's relevant.
You forgot the huge work Bush did in Africa fighting AIDS. In Global Battle on AIDS, Bush Creates Legacy
Freedom Fries. We spend $500,000,000,000 on the military a year, I think we can handle it See above. We did win. The Taliban are dead. If a terrorist knows where a bomb is inside my local school, I don't care if he's got car batteries attached to his nipples. WHATEVER IT TAKES I guess you don't consider freedom an American value. Tell the men and women in uniform that you don't think they're making you safer. LOOK THEM IN THE EYES.
Militants attack Pakistani hotel, 5 dead, 70 hurt PESHAWAR, Pakistan, June 9 (Reuters) - Militants attacked a hotel popular with foreigners in the Pakistani city of Peshawar with guns and a truck bomb on Tuesday, killing five people including a U.N. worker, authorities said. Taliban militants have stepped up bomb attacks since the military launched an offensive in April in the former tourist valley of Swat and neighbouring districts northwest of the capital. Militants shot their way through a security post at the gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar and a suspected suicide bomber set off the truck-bomb in front of the lobby, security officials said. "I was in the Chinese restaurant when we heard firing and then a blast. It was totally dark and people started shouting and running," hotel waiter Ali Khan told Reuters. Top city administrator Sahibzada Anis said five people had been killed, among them a U.N. refugee agency worker. Police said the man was Serbian. About 70 people were wounded among them a German woman working for the U.N. children's fund. A British man and a Nigerian man were also wounded, Anis said. The United Nations is heavily involved in providing relief for more than 2.5 million people displaced by the fighting in Swat and elsewhere in the northwest. About a dozen U.N. staff were staying at the hotel and some had been wounded but there had been no report of any fatality, a U.N. official said.
I have a good article to post by a SF newsguy who says the media is fawning all over Obama and too much so. Wanna read it?
From when he was inaugurated? Hardly surprising. Presidents tend to be at their most popular when first inaugurated. His approval/disapproval has basically been unchanged since the start of March. Bad news for people hoping the American people are turning on Obama. Thanks! I thought so.
