Has Obama failed at everything?

[GernBlansten]

Why won't you answer my question?

[vol_scouter]

Gern,

 

Once again, the healthcare bill was written and passed by democrats without republican input. The bill is what the democrat party wanted by definition since they were the only ones involved in writing it. Take a look at the link to see some of the early fallout. I know many who have similar plans. It will only get worse and it is only the democrats fault. The healthcare bill is a democrat bill that thet wrote and own.

[GernBlansten]

Why avoid my question?

[scoutingagain]

Well the tax cut "deal" pretty much seals it.

 

People voted for change and what we got was:

 

A health care bill whose blueprint was authored by Rebublicans even if it was voted in by Democrats.

 

Wall street "reform" that leaves in place most of the rules that allowed the fiscal mess to begin with. (I'm convinced our government, Dem and Rep, has been pretty much co-opted by special interests.)

 

Continued policies of corporate welfare(bailouts) started under the previous Republican administration.

 

And now with the tax deal, a fiscal policy right out of the Republican tax-cut and spend, credit card, pass the debt on to the next generations, approach to government spending.

 

Looks like Mitch McConnel will get his wish. He will seal Obama's fate as a one term President by having him implement Republican policies.

 

Hopefully a real conservative candidate will emerge, but if the option is Sara Palin, we may be stuck with what we have.

 

 

SA

[sherminator505]

I would try to find a better source of objective information than Fox News.

[packsaddle]

Egad! I feel oddly responsible for this thread and I didn't even start it.

Anyway, Sherm, if it's objective information who cares what the source is?

[JoeBob]

Shermi -

Don't be so close minded, ya big lefty!

 

The people at UCLA who study such things find that:

 

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center,

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

 

"If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox's 'Special Report' as ABC's 'World News' and NBC's 'Nightly News,' then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news," said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

 

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

 

 

[sherminator505]

I'm not closed minded, just cynical. I'll grant that there is a lot of lefty "news" out there as well, and I put just as much stock in that stuff.

 

The problem here is that we are treated to this drama masquerading as news, with one slant or t'other, while important facts and details are entirely left out of the narrative. So there really is no "white knight" in journalism on the TV. You have to dig for the truth.

 

As for "perfectly balanced," consider a man with one foot in a bucket of scalding hot water and the other in a bucket of ice. On average, the temperature of the buckets is equal to the man's body temperature, but is he really comfortable?(This message has been edited by sherminator505)

[CalicoPenn]

I have to laugh at the assertion that the republicans had no input, and no one asked the republicans for input on the health insurance reform bill (and it is health INSURANCE reform, not health care reform - it was a lazy media that continued to claim it was health care reform - we shouldn't be repeating their idiocy (ever notice how much respect I have for the media (sarcasm intended)).

 

The republicans were reached out to numerous times, republican amendments were added to the health insurance reform bill numerous times, republican demands to remove things from the health insurance reform bill were acceded to numerous times - that republicans then failed to vote for their own amendments doesn't mean that they weren't allowed to be part of the process. The congressional negotiators were from both parties.

 

This whole idea that they weren't involved is one of the biggest falsehoods of 2010 - and we're (the American Voter) letting people get away with it because we're a bunch of sheep. Give us a Big Mac and pablum on television (think Dancing with the Stars or American Idol) and we're happy as clams and don't bother us about reality.

 

During the health insurance reform bill process, the GOP would introduce an amendment, it would get added to the bill, the GOP would then vote against the amendment, then they would complain that they aren't allowed any input, would then introduce another amendment, would vote against the amendment, then would complain they aren't allowed any input, then would introduce an amendment - and start the cycle over and over again.

 

And talk about transparency - I point to this one bill as THE bill that has brought home the legislative process to everyone - we knew from day one everything that was going on with this bill - we spent months talking, no screaming, about this bill, and these changes, and those proposals, and on and on and on - before a bill was approved - thanks to this particular bill, most of us know how Congress actually works (or disfunctionally works, if I may be so bold) on legislation. This bill also showed just how ignorant and dangerously stupid many in the US are about government. We saw scene after scene of people on Medicaid at town hall meetings screaming at their Congresspeople to keep government out of their health care - health care that they apparently have forgotten is provided for by the government.

 

Has Obama failed at everything? No - but he's failed at the most important part - Communications. He has the biggest bully pulpit in the world - and he has failed to use it. This latest tax compromise is clearly a failure to use that pulpit. He should have gone on the air and insisted that the Congress pass unemployment insurance extension, if that was what he wanted, without it being tied in to any other legislation - and tell the American people that if Republicans blocked it, that they should make sure to send them Christmas greetings featuring a representation of the Grinch. He should have insisted that Congress pass an extension of tax cuts to the Middle Class, without keeping taxes for the wealthy, if that's what he wanted, and go on air and tell the American people that the Republicans in Congress has raised their taxes at Christmas time, and to make sure that they call their Congresspeople to thank them.

 

I would have preferred that he let all the tax cuts expire and get in on the tube and state clearly that he agrees with the Republicans that the deficit the Republicans created is a very real problem, and that we need to let these tax cuts expire now to pay for the borrowing the Republicans did during the wars and to prevent us from having even worse problems a few years down the road. He should have asked us to sacrifice a little now for greater prosperity in the future - and historically, the American people back Presidents that ask for some sacrifice, ask us to do something more that just "go shopping".

 

Yes he's failed - he's failed at trumpeting his accomplishments, and at playing hardball with people out to destroy him and this country, and of using that greatest of weapons - public opinion - to do what's best for the US. God help us all.

[packsaddle]

Gern, Gern....we drove the bus off the cliff during the Bush administration. It's as if, somewhere in free-fall, you've suddenly become aware of the situation. It doesn't matter who's at the steering wheel. We're going to auger in anyway. Have a nice day.

[Woapalanne]

"Yes he's failed - he's failed at trumpeting his accomplishments, and at playing hardball with people out to destroy him and this country, and of using that greatest of weapons - public opinion - to do what's best for the US. God help us all."

 

BUT.... but.... he has never EVER... tried to do what is best for US. Only what is best for his agenda. Not for us out here in the real world.

 

[CalicoPenn]

70 million people (give or take) voted for Obama's agenda. Had Obama tried to pass the agenda that he ran on, we wouldn't be having this discussion now, and the GOP would likely not have made the gains they did in the mid-term elections.

 

I don't know what agenda he's been working on, but it isn't Obama's agenda.

[vol_scouter]

Obama never discussed his agenda. He ran simply on change. I have talked with dozens of people who voted for him and they tended to see what they wanted to see in him - not what he actually wrote about in is books. When some of his agenda came out, such as wealth redistribution, many people said that to believe that about him was silly, it was made up to discredit him. Obama got elected without telling the American people much of his agenda except change. The change that he brought has now been thoroughly rejected by the voters. He has failed at foreign policy, he has failed at the economy, and he has failed to enact most of his extremist agenda despite having substantial majorities in both houses of congress.

[GernBlansten]

Vol, you have zero credibility.

You say in one post Obama passed socialized healthcare. I asked you if Romney's plan for Massachusetts, which Obama's plan was based on, was socialized healthcare. You won't answer.

 

You say his agenda was hidden, yet in his campaign, he promised healthcare reform. He promised to let the tax cuts expire. He promised to get out of Iraq. Sounds like an agenda to me.

 

Must you spread lies to make your point?

[vol_scouter]

Gern,

 

I gave the answer several times: The democrats wrote their own version of healthcare reform. If they copied anyone else's, it makes no difference because they were free to draft whatever they wished. The healthcare plan solely belongs to the democrats.

 

If providing opinions is lying, then it applies in both directions. I would rather think that we are scouters here and would not resort to such attacks. I have not surveyed the country but I do travel a moderate amount. In my discussions, people have projected onto Obama what they wanted to see and hear. I said to them after the election that he was for socialized medicine and cap & trade only to be told that I didn't know what I was talking about. Obama had a brilliant campaign strategy by running on change and focusing on President Bush. Obama ran on letting the Patriot act expire only to renew it. He said that the surge was bad and would not work only to see it bring success in Iraq. He then used the same strategy in Afghanistan.