Posted on 08/01/2011 11:29:38 PM PDT by lbryce
By rights, Barack Obama should be emerging as the big political winner in the debt ceiling debate. For months, he’s positioned himself near the center of public opinion, leaving Republicans to occupy the rightward flank. Poll after poll suggests that Americans prefer the president’s call for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to the Republican Party’s anti-tax approach. Poll after poll shows that House Republicans, not Obama, would take most of the blame if the debt ceiling weren’t raised.
Yet the president’s approval ratings have been sinking steadily for weeks, hitting a George W. Bush-esque low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup survey. The voters incline toward Obama on the issues, still like him personally and consider the Republican opposition too extreme. But they are increasingly judging his presidency a failure anyway.
The administration would no doubt blame this judgment on the steady stream of miserable economic news. But it should save some of the blame for its own political approach. Ever since the midterms, the White House’s tactics have consistently maximized President Obama’s short-term advantage while diminishing his overall authority. Call it the “too clever by half” presidency: the administration’s maneuvering keeps working out as planned, but Obama’s position keeps eroding.
Start with the first round of deficit debates this winter. After the Republican sweep, the White House seemed to have two options: double down on Keynesian stimulus or pivot to the center and champion deficit reduction. Instead, Obama chose to hover above the fray, passing on his own fiscal commission’s recommendations and letting the Republicans make the first move.
The strategy worked, in a sense. Goaded by the president’s evasiveness, Paul Ryan and the House Republicans put forward a detailed long-term budget proposal of their own, whose Medicare cuts proved predictably unpopular.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What was this guy smoking, anyway? In defense of the President, I’d like to formulate some responses to the reporter’s analysis:
‘For months, he’s positioned himself near the center of public opinion, leaving Republicans to occupy the rightward flank.’
Obama’s rebuttal: “I did all that?”
‘Call it the “too clever by half” presidency’
” Who you callin a half wit?”
‘Instead, Obama chose to hover above the fray’
“You callin me a fairy?”
‘the president was pioneering a new American way of statecraft: “Leading from behind.”’
“Alright, mother jumper, pick up that knife “
From the article: “This leaves Americans to contemplate two possibilities more alarming than debt-ceiling brinkmanship. First, that we’re living through yet another failed presidency. And second, that there’s nobody waiting in the wings who’s up to the task either.”
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Yes, there IS a leader out there - Governor Sarah Palin.
On a historical note, the republic survived a handful of Presidents who are remarkable only by their ineptitude - Polk, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan - only to “lead” us to the War of Yankee Agression. Not sure it can survive - without a similar war - this time.
They even point out they may be witnessing another failed president, and compare him to Romney (a legitimate comparison) by saying “if you took Romney and Obama’s plans, and met in the middle, you'd be in the middle of nowhere”.
I enjoyed the essay. Good solid analysis, especially since the author is probably a liberal, and probably likes Obama.
And when you see how politically-active the media has been, it should come as no surprise that they are the same ones who have always been in a position to track all the obituaries nationwide.
I would say 'credit' not 'blame.' But I don't endorse irresponsible behavior.
Do not underestimate the stupidity of the 53% who voted for Zer0.
Zer0 has another ace -in-the-hole that is the Republican party.
Second, and more importantly, the American people may very well blame Republicans in Congress more for the debt ceiling crisis than 0bama, but about half of them aren't represented by Republicans. Those who are represented by Republicans don't necessarily blame their guy. On the other hand, 0bama is President of everybody, so he gets no benefit from a "diffusion of blame."
The result is that this debt "crisis" and its handling will turn out to be far more damaging to the President among actual voters than it will be to individual Congressman.
And that's just peachy.
They take a poll that tells them people support Obama’s position and blame republicans for not making a deal.
Then they take a poll that tells them the level of support for Obama is sinking.
What more proof is needed to show that their poll methodology is biased or faulty?
Now, that's just nasty... what did it tell you?
8^D
Excerpt:
It is one thing to suspect that something is rotten in Denmark, quite another to have proof. Ever since Obama appointed his Rubinite economics team, it was blindingly obvious that he was aligning himself with Wall Street. The strength of the connection became even more evident in March 2009, when Team Obama embarked on its “stress test” charade and bank stock cheerleading. Rather than bring vested banking interests to heel, the administration instead chose to reconstitute, as much as possible, the very same industry whose reckless pursuit of profit had thrown the world economy off the cliff.
But now we see evidence in a new paper by the think tank Third Way of an even deeper commitment to pro-financier policies. The Democratic party has made clear that it supports institutionalized looting by banks, via the innocuous-seemeing device of rejecting the idea of writedowns on bonds they hold.
Policy advisors Lauren Oppenheimer and David Hollingsworth argue that point in the context of Greece, but the exact same logic would apply to banks anywhere. As Michael Hudson has warned:
…the war being waged against Greece by the European Central Bank (ECB) may best be seen as a dress rehearsal not only for the rest of Europe, but for what financial lobbyists would like to bring about in the United States.
And make no mistake about the role of Third Way. Third Way runs the policy apparatus of the Democratic Party. In Congress, staffers attend regular Third Way policy briefings, where the group hands out pre-packaged legislative amendments in legal form, generic press releases, polling around those policy ideas, and talking points. It’s a soup-to-nuts policy apparatus. Most of these ideas are harmless – like increased volunteerism – but some are not, like various tax proposals.
The group has enormous juice. On the Congressional side, it has six honorary Senate co-Chairs, and seven House-side co-Chairs. Jim Clyburn, a co-Chair, is in the House Democratic leadership. Two current cabinet members are former co-Chairs. Steny Hoyer, the House minority whip, held regular briefings for the freshmen member staff in the last Congress.
On the administration side, former Third Way board member Bill Daley is now White House chief of staff. Ron Klain, who was Biden’s Chief of Staff, is now with Third Way. The White House is pretty much full of Third Way-style apparatchiks.
Third Way also echoes, nearly entirely, the White House’s political line (though it is slightly ahead on gay rights). Here’s Third Way praising the Gang of 6 talks, opposing cut, cap, and balance, encouraging entitlement cuts, pushing various free trade agreements
Finally, most of the Board members are from the FIRE Sector (Wall Street and real estate), including the head of equity trading for Goldman Sachs and one of the heads of investment banking for Morgan Stanley. * * *
In short, there is no way in hell that Obama is going to derail the profiteering train being run by Wall Street insiders including that greedy @sshole George Soros.
Wall Streeters Top Obama Re-Election Supporters !
It's high time to suspect Obama of greedy ulterior motives rather than being a socialist reformer. King Zero is not a reformer -- even though he postures and preens like an openly gay ego maniac in love with camera ops. Obama is a profiteer just like his closet supporters.
Rumors abound on the Internet about Obama massing a huge fortune in off-shore trading accounts:
UPDATE: OBAMA OFFSHORE TRADING PROFITS EXCEED 3 BILLION DOLLARS !
If true -- Impeaching BO is the only way to move forward. But today our entire Congress is corrupt. Both the Dems and GOP have been taken over by shills and profiteers. In my view, both political parties are fake. Even our elections are fake for the most part, with voting machines pre-programed to substitute ones for zeros on a controllers' cue.
So this is how our Repubilc ends -- "Not with a bang, but a whimprer."
Thanks! I was wondering where they found people who would say, "Oh please, give me a tax increase!"
But I don't think the debt issue is going to be particularly damaging to Obama, especially since it seems to have served for nothing but to publicly split the GOP and peel off the new members, thereby undermining the credibility of the party as a party and, I think, ultimately marginalizing the "Tea Party" movement (outside of FR, at least).
Obama's only tactic is to do nothing about anything, mostly because he's too stupid and confused to even understand the implications, but to sweep in and try to claim the high ground at the last moment. And unfortunately, the GOP, which seemed oddly unprepared for this debate even though it was known for some time that a plan had to be developed, obliged as usual by providing a circular firing squad to pick off Obama's opposition.
In terms of the GOP, I think the big failure lay in not supporting Ryan's plan, which was early and good and in fact did not do anything to Medicare that would have affected anyone currently receiving it and only improved it for future recipients. But the GOP did not defend it and retreated in disorder, leaving it to Obama to benefit from the resulting chaos and hysteria.
Obama benefits from situations of disorder and confusion; he doesn't have a plan of his own, fundamentally because he doesn't care and is really focusing on his own ideological objectives. He did nothing during his stint as a state senator, and this was mildly criticized at the start of his campaign, but then the propaganda machine swung into action and nobody cared that he was an idiot; they just wanted to see him coming out from behind those Grecian columns with his dedicated fans fainting in front of him. And I think that's what will happen again.
Its the economy, stupid. This guy is worse than Jimmy Carter. No one likes him and no one wants his policies. He seems to always be on permanent vacation!
Check out how Robert Mugabe and his race hated, class warfare plays out in Zimbabwe.
How it's being played out in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez
Why Elian Gonzalez could NOT be allowed to stay in America and was given back to Castro.
And how the Left has been systematically indoctrinating American children to hate their country.
Because it is all about the Continuance of Them.
Please check out the related material section and other links to video. News report says debris in tail may devastate planet . . . LOL !
We need a simple piece of regulation that requires a death certificate to be entered into a database and automatically freezes the SS#, removes from voter registration rolls, denies new credit requests, freezes bank accounts and student loan and pension disbursements, passports, drivers licenses, government benefits, etc.
Basically, so when a person dies they cannot continue to live in the system for other people’s criminal purposes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWlEbbZb29A&feature=player_embedded
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