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I think he's a puppet.
He started off with high expectations and met none of them. He also seems to hold the Constitution in little regard.
I'm really not a fan at all.

Col. Dash wrote:
Horrible president. His diplomacy is horrific. He gutted the command structure of the military replacing them with yes men, to the point where they change intell reports to make it look like sunshine when they read it to him for fear of losing their jobs. It has cost lives trying to keep his "success" in foreign policy on message despite reality. Every foreign political leader knows they can push him around. Internally his policies have been a joke, and a harmful one at that. His healthcare crap bill did nothing but raise the rates for all of us who had it before(and mine are going up again significantly next cycle) and no bill should be passed before seeing what's in it. He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies. He refuses to make decisive decisions(on that I am glad but still not a good trait). He is so owned by special interests it isn't funny. He defies law constantly and actually orders agencies not to enforce certain laws that go against his idealology. Looking forward to seeing him go.

This I have to agree with. In my signature line is my absolute FAVORITE general of the last 30 years or so. He flat out told Obama how things were and because he did they kept him from becoming the commandant, instead we got fething combat conway, the worst commandant of the last 100 years or so. He can take his Chuck Fridays and shove them up his .... anyway back on point. You are right that Obama has basically fired any General who disagreed with him or his ideals. Far be it from a career military officer with 20-30 years experience to dare to instruct a political moron on how the military works. Clearly Obama is the best General ever and we forgot about his glorious military career in... the Kenyan national guard (Thats a joke calm down).

My favorite Obama moment was his speech about the ACA (Obama Care) and how it would lower insurance rates and you could keep the same doctor and blah blah blah. I just got a $900 bill in the mail from the Hospital where my son was born, apparently under Obama Tricare no longer covers testing new born babies for health problems.

Wanted this thread to "stew" a bit... now, let's the fisking begin!

Ya'll know my positions on Obama... right? No secret???

Bet your first guess at what I selected on the polls would be wrong...

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
The problem, as with every president, is he gets blamed too much for things that aren't his fault, and not blamed enough for things that actually are. And even things that look like his fault, aren't, and things that don't look like his fault, are. Confusing, eh?

For example, almost every campaign promise a presidential candidate makes is actually impossible for them to fulfill. Presidents don't make laws, Congress does that. So, who do you blame when, say, a campaign promise to lower taxes fails? I say you blame the voters who were too stupid to realize Congress is in charge of taxes, not the President.

He's a poster boy. That's it. Terrible leadership, no authority, no achievements. He's "ethical" and appeals to the lower class(es), but that's about what he's going for him. Forgettable. Can't blame him for being part of the wrong party, though...well...guess you could..

As a president, you don't make laws, that's congress for ya. As a president, you're supposed to be strong or at least appear strong and speak in high favor of your party's changes while dooming the opposing party's ones. All he did was being a "I'm on the fence" president with Obamacare being the sad milestone of a wasteful presidency.

Col. Dash wrote:
Horrible president. His diplomacy is horrific. He gutted the command structure of the military replacing them with yes men, to the point where they change intell reports to make it look like sunshine when they read it to him for fear of losing their jobs. It has cost lives trying to keep his "success" in foreign policy on message despite reality. Every foreign political leader knows they can push him around. Internally his policies have been a joke, and a harmful one at that. His healthcare crap bill did nothing but raise the rates for all of us who had it before(and mine are going up again significantly next cycle) and no bill should be passed before seeing what's in it. He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies. He refuses to make decisive decisions(on that I am glad but still not a good trait). He is so owned by special interests it isn't funny. He defies law constantly and actually orders agencies not to enforce certain laws that go against his idealology. Looking forward to seeing him go.

Whoa...

Let the hate flow my young Jedi.

What he said ya'll.


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 cincydooley wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Obama didn't 'win' any elections, the Republicans lost them by fielding clowns.

Romney was a clown?

That's strong.

IMO he'd be the single best candidate we'd have for the 2016 election from either side of that quagmire of gak.

You know what... I'd agree with that.

Romney is my 1a and Perry is my 1b candidate.

For 2016... I'm praying for Rubio to be the top ticket... anyone else? Ugh...


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 Hulksmash wrote:
The Primaries kill solid Republican candidates.

There's truth in that... but, also, at least the Primary voters are voting for the General Election with in mind... (Romney not being the hard right candidate).

As for Obama I'm meh on it. I'm making less money per paycheck thanks to the ACA but overall I think he's middle of the road. Not great and not horrible.

Yeup.

My healthcare cost in the last 4 years has so far outstripped my pay raise. So, in reality, my take-home-pay is much less in each of my last 4 years.

Col. Dash wrote:
Horrible president. His diplomacy is horrific. He gutted the command structure of the military replacing them with yes men, to the point where they change intell reports to make it look like sunshine when they read it to him for fear of losing their jobs. It has cost lives trying to keep his "success" in foreign policy on message despite reality. Every foreign political leader knows they can push him around. Internally his policies have been a joke, and a harmful one at that. His healthcare crap bill did nothing but raise the rates for all of us who had it before(and mine are going up again significantly next cycle) and no bill should be passed before seeing what's in it. He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies. He refuses to make decisive decisions(on that I am glad but still not a good trait). He is so owned by special interests it isn't funny. He defies law constantly and actually orders agencies not to enforce certain laws that go against his idealology. Looking forward to seeing him go.

Let's not forget "making" everybody in the united states hate each other

 Sigvatr wrote:
He's a poster boy. That's it. Terrible leadership, no authority, no achievements. He's "ethical" and appeals to the lower class(es), but that's about what he's going for him. Forgettable. Can't blame him for being part of the wrong party, though...well...guess you could..

As a president, you don't make laws, that's congress for ya. As a president, you're supposed to be strong or at least appear strong and speak in high favor of your party's changes while dooming the opposing party's ones. All he did was being a "I'm on the fence" president with Obamacare being the sad milestone of a wasteful presidency.

That's your perspective from Germany?

He's the "I'm on the fence" president? I'd say he's the "What time is the 'Green Time' " President.... which is okay with me, he can golf as much as he can! (so that he can do anymore damage)

We're kind of a child of both countries. Living in Germany for most of the year, but mostly doing business in / with the US. By "on the fence" I meant that he rarely commits to anything and if he does, it just goes nowhere (good).

 Sigvatr wrote:
We're kind of a child of both countries. Living in Germany for most of the year, but mostly doing business in / with the US. By "on the fence" I meant that he rarely commits to anything and if he does, it just goes nowhere.

Ah... understood.

From a foreign policy perspective, yea I concur.

Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

It's what he has to do, poltically, from his point of view. He has nothing going or him but people thinking "Hey, that's MY president, y'all!". He must cater to the emotional side as he fully fails on the rational side of things. No achievements whatsoever and everything he touched turned to...he's an opposite Midas!

Col. Dash wrote:
He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies.

 whembly wrote:

Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

Wow.

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

Col. Dash wrote:
He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies.

 whembly wrote:

Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

Wow.

What's so "Wow" about that? Do you have a point?

 whembly wrote:
Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

He was a community activist before running for office. Jumping into the fray as quickly as possible is in his job description.

I was wondering what the hell they were supposed to do...

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
I was wondering what the hell they were supposed to do...

I think the opposition aligns more with his "if I had a son he'd look like Trayvon" comment and his backing of the now debunked "hands up don't shoot" mantra.

 whembly wrote:
Yeah, that's whitewashing it a bit. If Bush was so horribad... then, it should be easy-peasy for Obama to *fix* things. Right?

No, because you can't just magically say "it's fixed now" and make the problems go away. Like, what could we do about Iraq? Bush started a war that never should have happened, but pulling everything out on the first day Obama was in office would have made an even bigger mess of the country. Similarly, there's no easy solution for our economic problems, once the damage is done it's too late to fix everything by simply changing the bad policies that got us into the mess.

And how is this different, than any other Presidency? I remember how the Democrats hated... HATED Reagan.

There's a difference between hate and obstruction for the sake of obstruction. Did the democrats push the country to the edge of bankruptcy (damaging our credit in the process) for the sole purpose of trying to make Reagan a one-term president? Because that's what the republicans have been doing. Anything Obama wants must be opposed because Obama is the Enemy, no matter how much it hurts the country.

You need to re-read what you wrote. The R's were largely locked out of the crafting of the PPACA. There was NO interest from Obama, Pelosi and Reid to negotiate ANYTHING with the Republicans. Hence the donkey-cave ish "I Won" statement from Obama...

I guess you missed the changes that happened as the democrats tried to appease right-leaning voters in congress? The republicans just declared that they weren't going to support ANY bill, even one that had a lot of similarities with Clinton-era republican proposals, because that would let the Enemy have a symbolic victory.

I'd argue Romney would've been a vastly superior President than Obama for all people as he'd been a very respectable "centrist" President.

So you think. Maybe center-right Romney would have been a decent president, or at least a "he kept the chair warm and the extremist lunatics out of office" president. But which Romney would we have seen? The center-right (by US standards) version who governed a blue state with decent approval ratings and would probably be willing to put successfully governing the country ahead of ideological opposition to the democrats? Or the version who promptly forgot about all those things when he needed to appeal to the far-right elements of the republican party? That weakness and lack of leadership is why he lost the election, he utterly failed to convince anyone that he was anything more than a generic old white guy with an R next to his name.

 Breotan wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

He was a community activist before running for office. Jumping into the fray as quickly as possible is in his job description.

Was in his job description. Now, he's supposed to lead the nation to an amiable solution, rather than just adding fuel to the fire.

Ok, what is an amiable solution? What could he have done?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, what is an amiable solution? What could he have done?

Not immediately "picking sides" in an ignorant, reactionary manner would be a start.

There's a reason "Black Lives Matter" is the new mantra and "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" isn't.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, what is an amiable solution? What could he have done?

with what? Which thing?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ok, what is an amiable solution? What could he have done?

Good question. Answering it is Obama's job. He didn't succeed.

I'm not saying everything is Obama's fault, but he hasn't taken any meaningful steps to address poverty and crime in minority groups, he laid the blame on the police even in instances where all the evidence backed up the police account, and generally didn't really do anything to help the situation.

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Yeah, that's whitewashing it a bit. If Bush was so horribad... then, it should be easy-peasy for Obama to *fix* things. Right?

No, because you can't just magically say "it's fixed now" and make the problems go away. Like, what could we do about Iraq? Bush started a war that never should have happened, but pulling everything out on the first day Obama was in office would have made an even bigger mess of the country. Similarly, there's no easy solution for our economic problems, once the damage is done it's too late to fix everything by simply changing the bad policies that got us into the mess.

The wasn't the argument... you've conveniently left out Tanner's "Obama is in a lose/lose situation".

My point was, Obama was elected that he'd be better than Bush in dealing with these issues... things are bad now, you just don't see it.

All you have is... yeah, but it's all Bush's fault.

fething own up to the fact that Obama's foreign policy is a downright disaster and things aren't much better domestically. gak man, the US Intel community are in an almost revolt against the Obama administration.

And how is this different, than any other Presidency? I remember how the Democrats hated... HATED Reagan.

There's a difference between hate and obstruction for the sake of obstruction. Did the democrats push the country to the edge of bankruptcy (damaging our credit in the process) for the sole purpose of trying to make Reagan a one-term president? Because that's what the republicans have been doing. Anything Obama wants must be opposed because Obama is the Enemy, no matter how much it hurts the country.

:sigh:

Unfortunately, that's standard practice in U.S. politics. The only real difference is that both parties are drifting further apart from each other.

You need to re-read what you wrote. The R's were largely locked out of the crafting of the PPACA. There was NO interest from Obama, Pelosi and Reid to negotiate ANYTHING with the Republicans. Hence the donkey-cave ish "I Won" statement from Obama...

I guess you missed the changes that happened as the democrats tried to appease right-leaning voters in congress? The republicans just declared that they weren't going to support ANY bill, even one that had a lot of similarities with Clinton-era republican proposals, because that would let the Enemy have a symbolic victory.

What, because the "basic idea" came from the Heritage Foundation paper written in the 80's somehow validates that this is a bipartisan idea?

Bull. Fething. Manure.

All this "republicans won't support any bill" is nothing more that insinuendoes that republicans are only doing that to make the first black President look bad... a backdoor attempt to pin the Republican party as a bunch of racists.

I'd argue Romney would've been a vastly superior President than Obama for all people as he'd been a very respectable "centrist" President.

So you think. Maybe center-right Romney would have been a decent president, or at least a "he kept the chair warm and the extremist lunatics out of office" president. But which Romney would we have seen? The center-right (by US standards) version who governed a blue state with decent approval ratings and would probably be willing to put successfully governing the country ahead of ideological opposition to the democrats? Or the version who promptly forgot about all those things when he needed to appeal to the far-right elements of the republican party? That weakness and lack of leadership is why he lost the election, he utterly failed to convince anyone that he was anything more than a generic old white guy with an R next to his name.

No, Romney lost because the Primary beat him to pulp, unfavorable media attention, being an uninspiring retail-politician and the fact that the Obama campaign was able to flex their grassroots muscle in the GOTV strategies.

Unfortunately for the US, candidate Romney was right in just about everything of what Obama has/will do...

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
He seems pretty decent from my outsider's perspective. However, he's basically just on the right side. The idea that people even consider republican ideas, from what I can tell of them as said outsider, is absolutely nightmarish. Anyone opposing that looks good.

what policies do you take issue with?

While im not necessarily a republican I am fairly conservative. Typically when I speak with a foreigner regarding our politics, they have the stereotypical views that all republicans are bible totting rednecks, which isn't always the case. Many conservatives, especially younger ones are market liberal, and fiscally conservative as far as spending goes, and social liberals.


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 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

Col. Dash wrote:
He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies.

 whembly wrote:

Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

Wow.

whats so "wow" about this?

He's a president, not a mayor, not a governor, a president. He has much bigger matters he should be addressing than some punk criminal kid who got shot trying to disarm a police officer. Worse still, he threw his opinion, as a president, into the fray before an investigation was completed (which...shockingly (sarcasm) showed the officer wasn't at fault).

Doing gak like that makes him seem incredibly petty, and polarizes the general public.


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 Breotan wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

He was a community activist before running for office. Jumping into the fray as quickly as possible is in his job description.

Which is another reason he shouldn't have been president. He is to quick to offer a knee jerk response to complicated issues.

 Ghazkuul wrote:

Col. Dash wrote:
Horrible president. His diplomacy is horrific. He gutted the command structure of the military replacing them with yes men, to the point where they change intell reports to make it look like sunshine when they read it to him for fear of losing their jobs. It has cost lives trying to keep his "success" in foreign policy on message despite reality. Every foreign political leader knows they can push him around. Internally his policies have been a joke, and a harmful one at that. His healthcare crap bill did nothing but raise the rates for all of us who had it before(and mine are going up again significantly next cycle) and no bill should be passed before seeing what's in it. He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies. He refuses to make decisive decisions(on that I am glad but still not a good trait). He is so owned by special interests it isn't funny. He defies law constantly and actually orders agencies not to enforce certain laws that go against his idealology. Looking forward to seeing him go.

This I have to agree with. In my signature line is my absolute FAVORITE general of the last 30 years or so. He flat out told Obama how things were and because he did they kept him from becoming the commandant, instead we got fething combat conway, the worst commandant of the last 100 years or so. He can take his Chuck Fridays and shove them up his .... anyway back on point. You are right that Obama has basically fired any General who disagreed with him or his ideals. Far be it from a career military officer with 20-30 years experience to dare to instruct a political moron on how the military works. Clearly Obama is the best General ever and we forgot about his glorious military career in... the Kenyan national guard (Thats a joke calm down).

My favorite Obama moment was his speech about the ACA (Obama Care) and how it would lower insurance rates and you could keep the same doctor and blah blah blah. I just got a $900 bill in the mail from the Hospital where my son was born, apparently under Obama Tricare no longer covers testing new born babies for health problems.

I'll give my exalt to this.


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 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:

Col. Dash wrote:
He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies.

 whembly wrote:

Domestically, he's "jumped into the fray" waaaay too early. See Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandy Hook Shooting, any school shooting for that matter.

Wow.

I agree. Wow, sending White House reps to funerals of criminals and making ill thought, pre mature statements about situations and adding fiel to the fire.

He's like John Cena, everybody hates him because he's a nice guy (or a good WWE puppet) . Looking forward to see Trump in office and see him invade Canada and Mexico!

Col. Dash wrote:
He caters to muslim groups while browbeating, ignoring or flat out targeting Christian groups and our foreign allies.

What do you care? The Christians have God, right? Why do they need a president to prop them up when you have AN OMNIPOTENT BEING on your side?

The most significant failure of Obama is that near-peer world leaders such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin don't view him as a serious opponent nor an equal at the negotiation table. He also squandered enormous amounts of initial good will that could have gone towards attempting to rebuild some good relationships in the Arab world. His domestic policy has resulted in a more stratified society where tensions are brought closer to the surface and erosion of respect for the state has occurred.

Erosion of respect for the state is happening in nearly all western societies, imo.

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
The most significant failure of Obama is that near-peer world leaders such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin don't view him as a serious opponent nor an equal at the negotiation table.

Why would they? What incentive is there for any nation to negotiate in good faith with the US President when the opposing party is publicly proclaiming, and even campaigning on, undoing everything the President has done? While it's always been true that a new president can change things when entering office, and that treaties are ratified by the Senate, the past four years have been exceptionally bad due to the toxicity in our politics, and the fact that our Congress is now willing to play out their temper tantrums on the world stage for all to see.

Unfortunately, that's going to be the case from now on, regardless of who is in the White House. Why should any nation negotiate with the US if they can't trust us to keep faith beyond the next election?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:
The most significant failure of Obama is that near-peer world leaders such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin don't view him as a serious opponent nor an equal at the negotiation table.

Why would they? What incentive is there for any nation to negotiate in good faith with the US President when the opposing party is publicly proclaiming, and even campaigning on, undoing everything the President has done? While it's always been true that a new president can change things when entering office, and that treaties are ratified by the Senate, the past four years have been exceptionally bad due to the toxicity in our politics, and the fact that our Congress is now willing to play out their temper tantrums on the world stage for all to see.

Maybe if Pres Obama had gone the Senate approved Treaty route instead of attempting a run around congress he would not be in the position where the next POTUS can undo the run around?