17 thoughts on “Obama’s Presidency”

  3. Sadly, it is likely that our President no longer fears polling. Because he has a legislature that is pretty cozy with the status quo, impeachment is not a threat. He will probably do whatever he wants for the remainder of his term.

  4. “He will probably do whatever he wants for the remainder of his term.”

    I can think of two things that could stop him:

    1) Continual mass demonstrations in front of the White House and across the nation.

    2) A Congress that suddeny becomes jealous of their prerogatives.

    – vetos can be overridden, money can be cut off, laws can be passed.

    I don’t have much confidence that either will happen but stranger things have happened.

    1. Actually, he’s had for his entire tenure extraordinary difficulties doing anything. Even one or two votes in the Senate were enough to stop his legislative ambitions for a year. I think one has to go back to Carter to find another president with this degree of inability to grind political sausage. And he’s been failing hard in the courts. Turns out the Supreme Court doesn’t respect the amateurish arguments coming out of the administration these days.

      The thing I find frustrating is the continued dogged support for Obama. You can go back to 2011 and still find the same approval ratings for him that he has today. My suspicion is that this is entirely situational (the support is conditioned on him being a representative for their party and/or ideology) and his approval rating will evaporate the moment he is no longer in power and these people feel safe to have an opinion again.

      Then they might grudgingly admit that he was a disaster for the US. Won’t matter the next time a living disaster occupies the White House or their enduring opinion that the opposition would have been worse.

      1. “Actually, he’s had for his entire tenure extraordinary difficulties doing anything.”

        That’s because of his arrogant “I won” attitude; his utter lack of knowledge about how a President is supposed to work with Congress, and his utter inability or disinterest in learning.

        “The thing I find frustrating is the continued dogged support for Obama.”

        People like Jim and Gerrib are so emotionally invested in the man that they have lost all perspective, all common sense (the dog ate mine and 6 other key people’s emails), and all ability to think critically. And the dorkier their arguments and defenses of Putz-POTUS are – and they get dorkier with very passing day – the harder they dig in.

        “Then they might grudgingly admit that he was a disaster for the US.”

        Would be interesting to know how many Carter voters admit he was a bad President.

        1. If I recall correctly, our blog host is one of those Carter voters that admits he was a bad President…

  5. The thing I find frustrating is the continued dogged support for Obama.

    It’s a symptom of the polarization of U.S. politics. You can have 40+% of the voters certain that the president is the worst thing to ever happen to the country, and 40+% fully supporting him (and the rest not caring much about politics). The two sides will get their information from different TV networks and websites, and care about different issues, so the divide is fairly stable. To have approval ratings outside the 40-50 range a president has to either oversee an economic boom (Clinton in 98-00), become a symbol for the country to rally around (e.g. Bush after 9/11) or do such a terrible job that he’s abandoned by his own party (e.g. Bush after 2005).

    1. ” or do such a terrible job that he’s abandoned by his own party (e.g. Bush after 2005).”

      Except being a Democrat means never having to admit your shit stinks. Obama crapped his pants and Democrats are blaming the bullied kid for farting up the room.

      1. Ask Democrats if they think Obama has done a terrible job; they don’t. He said he’d rescue the economy, reform health care, regulate Wall Street and address climate change; he’s done those things. The things that Democrats care about that he hasn’t done — closing Guantanamo, immigration reform — have obviously been blocked by the GOP, which tempers the disappointment.

        1. He said he’d rescue the economy, reform health care, regulate Wall Street and address climate change; he’s done those things.

          This is part of the problem right here. It’s not enough to support him. You have to make bizarre claims too. A pet rock could have done the above too with at least as much success. For example, economies naturally recover and rather rapidly too. Doing nothing would have resulted in a recovery too – IMHO much faster than we’ve actually been recovering. Obama has been hindering not helping the recovery. Such things as the remarkably slow uptick in job recovery have long been remarked on here.

          As to the health care reform, we’re going to need to reform that again, just to get a system we can afford. Again, this is something you probably will stay in denial about until it’s no longer necessary to your belief system.

          As to regulating Wall Street, it has never stopped being regulated.

          And addressing climate change? What a worthless term. Even doing nothing, pet rock-style is addressing climate change.

    2. There’s no question that independents swing the vote.

      The problem is that the 4th estate is still heavily biased towards the cult of social justice. It does not reflect the majority of America’s views. For example, you know damned well that Americans did not like the ACA as it was going through Congress, but the press ignored that and pushed the lies of the dems.

      If the press was doing its job, we wouldn’t have the support for Obama. Fortunately the truth is coming out as Americans finally are seeing through the gilded edges of this administration.

      1. The problem is that the 4th estate is still heavily biased towards the cult of social justice.

        Fox News? The Wall Street Journal? There’s plenty of media for any political preference.

        It does not reflect the majority of America’s views.

        That’s true. For example, the TV/print media elite are all in the top 1% if not 0.1% of incomes. Virtually all of its members are college graduates. It is whiter than the country as a whole, more likely to live in a city, and more likely to live on one of the coasts. Its perspective is naturally quite different from that of a randomly selected American. For example, the media is much more concerned about the budget deficit than the average voter, and much less concerned about long-term unemployment.

        If the press was doing its job, we wouldn’t have the support for Obama.

        The losing side of every political fight says “if only the press was doing its job…”. It’s a lazy excuse.

        1. Nothing lazy about it. It’s called responsibility.

          I once pointed out to my co-workers that Harry Reid was quoted to say:

          … privately that Obama, as a black candidate, could be successful thanks, in part, to his “light-skinned” appearance and speaking patterns “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

          They had never heard it because they listen to the evening and local news. Both are bastions of leftist ideology.

          Would you admit that part of Obamas cratering poll numbers is because they can’t hide his disastrous decisions anymore?

        2. Let me explain “heavily biased”. It doesn’t mean that every media outlet supports Obama. It means that most do, and their audience dwarfs the Fox News audience (since it’s a cable channel). It’s funny to hear Fox described as “plenty of media”, given the general lockstep of CBS/NBC/ABC/CNN/MSNBC for Obama and company. Similarly, the WSJ isn’t exactly “plenty” when compared with the NYT/LAT/etc.

  6. “The losing side of every political fight says “if only the press was doing its job…”. It’s a lazy excuse.”

    And that argument is the sychophant’s excuse.

  7. It sure helps to build trust when you ram through a law that promises cheaper health care and then it rises by
    28 percent.

    But then, those of us who were using our brain knew this was about power, and not about giving Jim lower health care premiums.

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