In the August 7th issue of the New York Times there was a four page article entitled What Happened to Obama?" written by Drew Westen, a self professed liberal professor. The entire article is well worth the time as it is a quick read. It is clear that when you start seeing articles like this one essentially telling us "the king has no clothes", can Obama's time as President be ending? I don't know the answer but there are trends which are not positive for the current occupant of the White House.
Today in his lunch posting, Dick Morris, described a Zogby poll which asked those liked Obama, what they thought of his performance. Roughly 30% thought he was doing a good job. That is condemning considering it asked that question of only those who had a positive attitude toward him.
However, before we, who oppose Obama, start the celebrations, I think it is important to remember that he is a great campaigner and his rhetoric can be convincing to those who are not immersed in politics. Also we need to remember that nearly 50% of the population does not pay any Federal taxes and something like 14% are on welfare or some support. Will these people vote for someone who might increase their taxes or cut their benefits? I doubt it.
Most likely if the election were held today, it would be a close contest with the result being settled in the Electoral College. However, the election is not for fourteen months and a lot can happen including the quadrennial October surprise. Please read the article and let me know what you think.
An excerpt is reprinted below:
Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the party he leads — believes on virtually any issue. The president tells us he prefers a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction, one that weds “revenue enhancements” (a weak way of describing popular taxes on the rich and big corporations that are evading them) with “entitlement cuts” (an equally poor choice of words that implies that people who’ve worked their whole lives are looking for handouts). But the law he just signed includes only the cuts. This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling. He announces in a speech on energy and climate change that we need to expand offshore oil drilling and coal production — two methods of obtaining fuels that contribute to the extreme weather Americans are now seeing. He supports a health care law that will use Medicaid to insure about 15 million more Americans and then endorses a budget plan that, through cuts to state budgets, will most likely decimate Medicaid and other essential programs for children, senior citizens and people who are vulnerable by virtue of disabilities or an economy that is getting weaker by the day. He gives a major speech on immigration reform after deporting a million immigrants in two years, breaking up families at a pace George W. Bush could never rival in all his years as president.
THE real conundrum is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit. That a large section of the country views him as a socialist while many in his own party are concluding that he does not share their values speaks volumes — but not the volumes his advisers are selling: that if you make both the right and left mad, you must be doing something right
I hold Obama responsible for the things he can control without any help from Congress. Tops on my list is getting our military out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and closing many military bases around the world. It is time for these other countries to pay for their own defense. The Soviet Union is long gone, but we still have a bloated military designed to fight a convention war with submarines, air squadrons, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, and all such VERY expensive hardware that is nearly useless in asymmetrical wars in places like Vietnam, Iraq, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat this writer doesn't seem to grasp is that Obama begs Congress for what he wants and then settles for what he can get. He did it on extending Bush tax cuts on incomes over $250k in order to get them extended on everyone else, and he agreed to spending cuts with no revenue in order to avoid default on the national debt threatened by the Tea Party. He'd never make it as a poker player, because it wouldn't take long for good players to see that he can be bluffed all night long.
--David
David, I agree with you that we need to get out of Europe, Kosovo, and other places that we are no longer needed. Korea, is still a hot spot in which we should have troops.
ReplyDeleteI do disagree that we should get rid submarines, aircraft carriers etc due to the fact that this is not a friendly world and we still need to have "a big stick" as Teddy R once said.
Getting out of Iraq and Afganistan is the result of a lack of knowing what victory means. If we had gone in with goals and an exit strategy, it would have worked. Now we are in the same quadmire that we had in Vietnam. If we leave, what happens? I will presume the same as Vietnam which will mean a slaughter. Did we accomplish anything? Yes, population control is the only thing.
Obama is not a good poker player nor is his an adequate President. He is poor at both! To expect any leadership from him is like expecting a blind man (from birth) to describe a rainbow! He has no inkling and will never!
Actually, Korea is a perfect example. They are the 15th largest economy in the world (20 times more GDP than N. Korea). Nobody can convince me that they can't provide for their own military defense. Same story with Japan. They have been able to neglect military spending and grow their economies at our expense for 60 years. It is time for them and Europe to step up to the plate.
ReplyDeleteIn asymmetrical wars like in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, all the air squadrons, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, etc. that cost hundreds of billions have been irrelevant. We are prepared to fight a massive conventional war against the Soviet Union, which has been a nonexistent enemy now for decades. Realistically, no country in the world is going to launch a conventional war against the U.S. Plus, in Iraq if they have a civil war, there's nothing our military can do to stop it short of sending in 100,000 troops and occupying the country for another 10 years. Would you really want to do that? al-Qaeda is now all over the Mideast with headquarters in Pakistan. These wars are insane. Vote for Ron Paul.
As for Obama, I totally oppose most of his foreign policy. On domestic policy, you and I just disagree on the facts regarding the effects of the stimulus and ACA -- which are the only things Obama has done for the economy. Still, he lost the poker hand on both of them, as well as the debate on default on the national debt and the extensions of the Bush tax cuts.
--David
I am not saying that Korea and Japan as well as Europe should not pay for us being there. We did it as you say, as a result of the cold war. The only reason I think that we need to be in Korea is that North Korea's leadership is, in a word, insane. We need to help to protect this big economy from Northern invasion which would happen if we removed our forces.
ReplyDeleteI do disagree with you that we will never fight another conventional war. Do not think that the Chinese are peaceniks. They want to rule the world. Whether they do it by military or by economic domination is to be seen, but do not dismiss them. We need a strong military in all phases of the force to counteract China. They already have one of largest armies, most subs etc etc. If they were not looking for military domination why would they be building up their forces?
Yes, South Korea needs military defense. With an economy 20 times larger than N. Korea, they can easily put their own soldiers, bases, tanks, missiles, etc. on the border. They don't need ours there. As for China, they spend only around 2% of GDP on military and have held at that level for the last 20 years. We spend more than DOUBLE that percentage of GDP at the expense of our educational system, infrastructure, scientific research, etc. alternative uses of the capital. That is one major reason why their economy is growing and our jobs are going to China. By mid-century at this rate their economy will be larger than ours. At that point, they can outspend us on military if they choose. Military is about the LEAST productive use of federal revenue, and that is why all these countries are happy to have our military bases and personnel in their countries so that they don't have to spend their own resources. Ron Paul is the only candidate in either party who has this in perspective.
ReplyDelete--David
according to Global Security.org, the following is interesting reading:
ReplyDeleteChina's Defense Budget
On 4 March 2011, it was reported China would spend $91.5 billion on the People Liberation Army, navy and air forces next year, marking a return to double-digit spending. In the previous year the defense budget rose 7.5 percent. The rise accounted for just 6 percent of China's national budget. The United States' in February 2011 request was $553 billion for the 2012 "base" budget, up 4.2 percent from 2011, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, for a total of $671 billion. The Chinese military budget, at official exchange rates, is one-seventh that of the United States. But on a more appropriate purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, the Chinese military expenditure is over $400,000,000,000, nearly two thirds that of the United States
This guy is looking through the wrong end of the telescope. For 2011, China's military spending as a percentage of GDP is down to 1.4%. It has not been that low for decades. In absolute dollars (what this guy is looking at), it is an increase over 2010, but that is a reflection of their expanding GDP. One of the things that wrecked the economy of the Soviet Union was their attempt to beat the U.S. in an arms race with an inferior economy. If you look at the federal budget of China outside the military, you can see that they are putting money into education, infrastructure, and other investments to grow the economy, while Congress is looking at how much we can cut these investments to pay for wars, tax cuts, etc. Over the next 40 years, they could take us down the same path the Soviets followed if we don't cut back on military spending in order to get more competitive in the global economy. Vote for Ron Paul.
ReplyDelete--David