"The disappointment in Obama is not caused by a flaw in his character but by two things: money and

[sinkingfeeling]

Connecticut." Great letter written to Eric Alterman.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/37912/not-so-slacker-friday

The disappointment in Obama is not caused by a flaw in his character but by two things: money and Connecticut. You can't pass bills without votes, and those votes depend on fundraising, and that fundraising is corrupted, ergo the votes are corrupted. You can't pass any of these bills without the execrable JoeMentum Lieberman, who represents, in this order: 1. a foreign country 2. insurance companies 3. defense contractors 4. his own ego 5. his citizen constituents. The system is garbage in, garbage, out, and it is not Obama putting the garbage in. He can't be FDR because it's 10% (or 15%) unemployment, not 25%, and people aren't selling apples in the streets. The votes are not there, not yet anyway, hopefully it won't get so bad that they will be! In the meantime, scoring his presidency a year and a half into it, with two wars, a deep recession, and the lovely parting gift of an open gash in the earth spewing forth ancient liquid carbon... well, it is a tad premature. The government never had people capable of stopping oil leaks a mile below the ocean just sitting around waiting to be deployed by Obama, leaving 'writers' like MoDo to complain he wasn't doing a good job channeling Robert Young in 1954. Well excuse me, as Steve Martin might say. You don't read much about how wonderful the Prez is now that the leak is stopped, though. Scoring this election in July, given Obama's essentially hoopster operating system, is also very premature. The action will be in the fall when real people with real lives, as opposed to residents of the vast cable chatter wasteland and the farther precincts if Blogistan start paying attention to Congress. At that point it is fairly certain that Obama and the Dems will pay much more attention to job creation and helping the unemployed, trapping the Republicans into either going along with that (and defusing it as a political issue) or blocking it, and taking the heat. Y'all need to take the summer off like in the old days and pay attention when the kids are back in school and the leaves start to turn. If the Prez et al stay passive then, yeah, they're toast. But the score only counts when the clock runs out; till then it's just a temporary state of affairs. The Republicans have played themselves into exhaustion and foul trouble and lead by four points at halftime. Two three pointers and it turns around. Just you watch.

Greg Panfile
Scarsdale, NY

[truedelphi]

1. Uh - Unemployment is a lot more than ten percent.

That is simply the Big Lie of the Big Statistic arrangers.

Among those not counted: people who have given up.

People who cannot get unemployment because they were fired, didn't quit, and thus no unemployment.

Small business people whose businesses collapsed, and they never paid into unemployment.

Seventeen percent of the households in my County are on Food Stamps. (This County has many contractors, and trades people, so when the housing flipping bubble broke, they ended up unemployed.) This is not an anomaly. Many two paycheck households now rely on one paycheck. Many households have two semi employed people.

The big problem we have is that this is a Wall Street presidency. Once a President lets all his economic appointments and approved persons hand out fourteen trillion bucks, the money is gone. Nada. Pantry empty.

So the jobs that were permanently created are all jobs inside the financial centers of New York, Houston, Chicago, etc.

And since we will sooner or later hit the second round of the Crisis, these will Be considered the "good old days." Why am I saying that there is a second round of economic criss about to appear? Well, after all, Twenty trillion bucks in derivative losses that have not yet been announced or cleaned up, but HEY! that is what our Social Security payments of 7.5+% to 16% a paycheck were for to help Obama cover his buddies' friends and their careers in Wall Street, we must assume.

[USArmyParatrooper]

3. That's the way unemployment has always been counted

So if it's not 10% now then the historic data is also skewed.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. This is when we need a rec button for reply posts

:thumbsup:




TG, NTY

[Hydra]

6. That's not the only thing wrong with this opinion piece

The Democratic powers that be backed Lieberman because they were afraid of having an anti-war Senator- Lamont. That "strategic decision" was either poorly thought out or truly masterful. Lieberman and a few others are pointed out to be stumbling blocks, causing any Democrat legislation from making it out in any usable form.

IMO, that's so VERY convenient.

De-rec.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. It's not an opinion piece. It's a guy in NY writing a letter.

[truedelphi]

9. Oh I know, Hyfdra, I know. There were several flaws in the

Several major premises this guy was using to construct his argument.

But given that most people cannot handle reading more than one or two paragraphs in response, I figured it best if I picked off the first of the several "errors' that came to mind.

like you are somewhat discussing, you would think from reading the piece that Obama disliked Lieberman or something.

[TheWraith]

13. I call bullshit.

There was no big conspiracy to stop there from being an "anti-war Senator." There are lots of anti-war Senators. Boxer? Corzine? Feingold? Levin? Kennedy? Wyden? And 17 others.

[Hydra]

14. Feel free

But how did we get Lieberman after the DLC and other Dem powers supported him in the Primaries, and then he had to run as an "independent"?

The support wasn't entirely Republican, or he would have lost.

No, I was here when it happened, and watched all the by-play. "Weak on Terror" was cited as the reason, but I see it as "He's the perfect excuse."

And he still is.

[OhioChick]

10. +1 n/t

[USArmyParatrooper]

2. An excellent perspective and spot on. Rec'd

[John Q. Citizen]

5. Obama is a mixed bag.

I was extremely angry and disappointed that he shut single payer advocates out of the health care reform process and the debate on health care. He promised to let all legitimate and concerned sides make their case and he reneged on that promise.

Getting 20 billion up front from BP was brilliant. That alone should get him re-elected. but will it?

Politics isn't a basket ball game. Writers who insist on writing about politics as if it were a commercial team sport are really boring and not saying anything.

Obama has racked up an impressive legislative record, but what if they passed a legislative agenda and nobody cared?

[Erose999]

8. Its worth noting that Glenn Beck is one of Lieberman's constituents.

[Bobbieo]

11. Rule 1 in writing, Greg - Readability - Easy to read - break up copy into easy

to read sentences.

You lost me here because at my age and poor eyesight your
copy turns into one giant blur!!!

[DireStrike]

12. I think this is not the writer's fault.

Many write-in forms don't allow you to format at ALL.