Cassander
Mac and Cheese with Okra on top of it
Tourista
Wee Bin Hoker
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Posts: 5144
Simmer down now!
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« Reply #16 on: January 29, 2010, 11:09:23 AM » |
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I agree with Tyson. the democratic majority in congress basically had a year to get health-care legislation together while the republicans did little more than throw spit-balls at them. But it turned into a giant free-for-all once certain congressmen realized they could pretend to withhold their votes and hold out for special amendments. I know it's more complicated than that, but it still sucks ass. The health-care bills just snowballed out of control until it got so huge and unknowable that it just scared everybody. Obama tried to step in, but it was too late.
My problems with Obama stem mostly from strategy, not failed achievements or politics. He shouldn't have said that it would take a year to close Gitmo. Anyone who thought that was going to happen really drank the Change Kool-Aid and now they're acting betrayed. Reality has nothing to say to people like that. I know Obama's smart, and that he'd hoped to have it done, but why give yourself such a short deadline? Again, the health-care debacle was another strategic mess. He took a gamble in letting Congress make the opening gambit, figuring his cache and power would let him stroll in as mediator later on and sort things out. Which also doesn't make sense. He was IN congress for four years and a state rep before that. He should've known everyone would smell the money like blood in the water.
The problem here is that now he has people on both sides hating him, both claiming that he's moving in the wrong direction. If an administration (at any level) lets that get to their head, things can get dicey. What Obama should do is continue to govern and shoot for his goals but just not tell anyone what those goals are until afterward, just like Bush did. Stay out of the spotlight until it's time to sign the bill or make a quick press conference. Bush enacted a lot of policy changes without any fanfare, and he got a lot of it done quickly and without any fuss in the media because we were all focused on either hating or loving the war. Obama needs to just make deals and not care if the American people know about it. I believe he's still the right man for the job at this point in time...at least, the best available choice.
And I also disagree with people talking about how 2010 is going to be the next 1994. It's possible that some seats may change, but I don't see this group of repubs even coming close to coming up with a branded product like "the Contract with America" or coming up with the balls to start a budget showdown. As for 2012, there is no republican candidate that could feasibly win the presidency right now, and even if there was, it would be more boredom, more moralistic blah-blah....not fire and brimstone. Unless we get attacked again. Hell, by 2012 we'll have a small, constantly dying force in Iraq that's permanently out of the newspapers and the stock market will have found a way to get up to 18,000 fake points. Obama could run on a platform of "Change that's Here to Stay!"
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