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He cannot run the Executive on a day-to-day basis?

Frazzled wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:His dealings with congress have been pretty wimpy. He's backed down on a bunch of stuff. But the actual responsibilities of the executive branch have been carried out correctly.

Not getting your legislative agenda to happen can make you a mediocre president, but it doesn't make you incompetent. Incompetent means you literally cannot run the day to day white house, which he obviously can.

Thats your standard for competent? How could you judge a president incompetent on anything then?

Yeah, see "incompetent" is really strong language for a really serious thing. It's really hard for an incompetent person to make it all the way to the white house. Some of our worst presidents were still smart and capable people who made the wrong decisions.

dogma wrote:He cannot run the Executive on a day-to-day basis?

Define run. He has a Cabinet and administration for that. He's the big picture guy, not operations.


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Rented Tritium wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:His dealings with congress have been pretty wimpy. He's backed down on a bunch of stuff. But the actual responsibilities of the executive branch have been carried out correctly.

Not getting your legislative agenda to happen can make you a mediocre president, but it doesn't make you incompetent. Incompetent means you literally cannot run the day to day white house, which he obviously can.

Thats your standard for competent? How could you judge a president incompetent on anything then?

Yeah, see "incompetent" is really strong language for a really serious thing. It's really hard for an incompetent person to make it all the way to the white house. Some of our worst presidents were still smart and capable people who made the wrong decisions.

Fair point. I guess "ineffective" would be another word, wlthough I'd stick with incompetent personally.

Frazzled wrote:
Define run. He has a Cabinet and administration for that. He's the big picture guy, not operations.

So he isn't responsible for his cabinet?

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Define run. He has a Cabinet and administration for that. He's the big picture guy, not operations.

So he isn't responsible for his cabinet?

He doesn't run the departments on a day to day basis, no.

I'm fine with ineffective.


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Frazzled wrote:

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Define run. He has a Cabinet and administration for that. He's the big picture guy, not operations.

So he isn't responsible for his cabinet?

He doesn't run the departments on a day to day basis, no.

Except he is constitutionally responsible for their operation.

If you can blame someone for it going wrong, you can count them for it going right.

Rented Tritium wrote:
If you can blame someone for it going wrong, you can count them for it going right.

Yep.

dogma wrote:

Rented Tritium wrote:
If you can blame someone for it going wrong, you can count them for it going right.

Yep.

So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Frazzled wrote:Thats your standard for competent? How could you judge a president incompetent on anything then?

I'd say if they don't allow a major american city to be destroyed by bad weather, they are competent.

Unless that city is Detroit. In that case, do what you must.

Ouze wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Thats your standard for competent? How could you judge a president incompetent on anything then?

I'd say if they don't allow a major american city to be destroyed by bad weather, they are competent.

Unless that city is Detroit. In that case, its already happened.

Corrected your typo.

Wai how does a US President keep a city from being destroyed by natural weather? I mean I know Obama can walk on water, but its a little much to say he's responsible for all the deaths caused by last year's tornadoes.

Frazzled wrote:So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Only if you don't see any foolishness in blaming Obama for a program that was started in 2005.

You may wish to narrow the scope of your argument.

Also, if Detroit is considered "destroyed", then it's high damn time we let the free market kick in and build Delta City already!

Ouze wrote:

Frazzled wrote:So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Only if you don't see any foolishness in blaming Obama for a program that was started in 2005.

You may wish to narrow the scope of your argument.

Also, if Detroit is considered "destroyed", then it's high damn time we let the free market kick in and build Delta City already!

So I can, indeed, now claim Obama is responsuible for the death of US federal agents. After all it was his program. Excellent. (note I am not advocating that, just demonstrating that the concept is stupid).

Ouze wrote:

Frazzled wrote:So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Only if you don't see any foolishness in blaming Obama for a program that was started in 2005.

You may wish to narrow the scope of your argument.

Also, if Detroit is considered "destroyed", then it's high damn time we let the free market kick in and build Delta City already!

I met a kid from Detroit in basic that said, "Robocop was an awesome movie, it's a shame Distopian Detroit is nicer than the real thing" never been there but I feel he appealed to my natural hatred for large population centers.

My point was that you may wish to be more specific. Senator Obama did not start the program.

His responsibility is limited to the elements which fell under his purview; specifically, "Operation Fast & The Furious", which was an offshoot of Project Gunrunner.

Ouze wrote:My point was that you may wish to be more specific. Senator Obama did not start the program.

His responsibility is limited to the elements which fell under his purview; specifically, "Operation Fast & The Furious", which was an offshoot of Project Gunrunner.

The killings occurred while he was President. So but this interesting definition of competent, he's responsible.

Yes, the president is responsible for anything that takes orders from the executive branch. This is a pretty simple concept.

The buck stops there.

Now, how much we hold it against him may change depending on the circumstances, but the ultimate responsibility for an executive controlled agency's actions falls to the president, officially.

Other things may make it less bad or less damaging, but he's responsible either way.

Frazzled wrote:
So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Sure, if you want to blame Bush 2 for 9/11.

Its all about reasonability.

There are people that do that, Dogma.

A weird bunch... a... paranoid bunch, usually...

You can blame bush 2 for any policies of any executive agencies which made 9/11 more likely.

You can blame the executive for anything that happens in the executive branch.

It is under his constitutional authority, thus the buck stops there.

Yes, I used the term whacky, since I see and hear a lot of people refer to Obama as far left.

According to this Gallup Poll. most Americans see Obama as further left.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/151814/Americans-Huntsman-Romney-Paul-Closest-Ideologically.aspx?utm_source=add%2Bthis&utm_medium=addthis.com&utm_campaign=sharing#.TvxqjPJqVyI.twitter

Do I consider him whacky. Not really, I think him well to the left, and I don't think most people would really deny that, not even him, after all Liberal is not really a dirty word. I do find a lot of my area Obama supporters to be pretty whacky though.

Now maybe my perception is skewed based upon the fact I live in Oregon, near the larger population centers where the majority of people are pretty well left, and will vote for anyone listed as Democrat, Green, Independent party (yes there is one, I know.. weird), Socialist, or even Communist, and will almost never stray outside of those.

I hear what "average Democrat voters" said on a regular basis about President G. W. Bush, that he was a crazy right wing neo con. They are still going on about it. The same things were regularly said about Romney and McCain in the last presidential election cycle. Ohh the extremists.

They are pretty well Moderate as far as I can tell.

This is sadly how politics tends to get discussed in broad brush strokes, with strong language.

I am one of those whacky non party affiliated voters that they call "independent" and I have voted for Democrats, Socialists, Independent party, Republicans, Libertarians and even for a Corpse, depending on issues, what positions they were applying for, and depending on what the situations of the times warranted.

I personally think that anyone who knows exactly which way they are going to vote a year ahead of election day is not going to be swayed by anything, and probably just a party line voter as the majority seems to be. I find it distasteful, and lazy

Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
I personally think that anyone who knows exactly which way they are going to vote a year ahead of election day is not going to be swayed by anything, and probably just a party line voter as the majority seems to be. I find it distasteful, and lazy

QFT.

If you already know all the candidates involved (or at least all the ones who are anywhere near electable), it's not unreasonable to know whom you prefer well in advance.

Preference sure. But the "I will vote for X a year in advance." silliness.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Sure, if you want to blame Bush 2 for 9/11.

Its all about reasonability.

Indeed. Thats why the argument is stupid.

Mannahnin wrote:If you already know all the candidates involved (or at least all the ones who are anywhere near electable), it's not unreasonable to know whom you prefer well in advance.

Further, if you know the candidates histories and you are holding off on deciding to see if they say something interesting at a truckstop in new hampshire, that's pretty crazy to me.


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Frazzled wrote:

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
So I can blame him for gunrunner killing federal agents, not to mention several hundred Mexican nationals then?

Sure, if you want to blame Bush 2 for 9/11.

Its all about reasonability.

Indeed. Thats why the argument is stupid.

Praise and blame go hand in hand. If we can't blame presidents for the actions of their executive agencies which are constitutionally under their control, then we also can't credit them when those agencies do things correctly.

Basically you want to just ignore an entire responsibility of the office of president because it's convenient to this one argument.

EDIT argh can't get this post fixed. never mind.

Frazz I feel like you meant to write something, then had to open the door for a dog and hit submit instead.

thanks. corrected

Chester A. Arthur was pretty incompetent. He couldn't even do corruption right.

Frazzled wrote:thanks. corrected

Yeah it's still not fixed.