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When Olbermann and Matthews and Fineman at MSNBC are trashing the speech afterward, you know he is in trouble.
 
Speech was too short, Matthews said he didn't project executive control or describe all the executive branch could do, there was no discussion of a potential energy bill, he didn't describe in much detail exactly what he had done so far to display leadership, there wasn't an attempt to raise spirits or project a sense of optimism, there was no explanation of where the 90% cap rate came from...
 
BVS said:
What were they trashing the speech about?
Click to expand...

Some specific quotes:


Olbermann: "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days."

Matthews compared Obama to Carter.

Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said."

Matthews: "No direction."

Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

Howard Fineman: Obama should be acting like a "commander-in-chief."

Matthews: Ludicrous that he keeps saying [Secretary of Energy] Chu has a Nobel prize. "I'll barf if he does it one more time."

Matthews: "A lot of meritocracy, a lot of blue ribbon talk."

Matthews: "I don't sense executive command."
 
Rep. Steve King: Obama Favors The "Black Person" By Default | Political Correction

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) appeared on the G. Gordon Liddy Show this morning to discuss Arizona's controversial immigration law and accused Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama — both critics of the legislation — of harboring animosity towards white Americans. Specifically, he accused Obama of having a "default mechanism" that favors "the black person."

King: When you look at this administration, I'm offended by Eric Holder and the President also, their posture. It looks like Eric Holder said that white people in America are cowards when it comes to race. And I don't know what the basis of that is but I'm not a coward when it comes to that and I'm happy to talk about these things and I think we should. But the President has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race — on the side that favors the black person.

King misquoted Holder, who did not single out any specific group during a Justice Department event last February:

"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

Moreover, conservatives are wholly obsessed with the idea that Obama — not the racist-sign-wielding nativists who swarm to Tea Party gatherings — has a race problem. The president's supposed bias, to which King has alluded several times, apparently makes him unable to look objectively at issues. His loyalty, according to King, is not to all Americans but to a specific ethnic community. Last month, for example, King asked, "When [Obama] had an Irish cop and a black professor, who did he side with?"
 
I miss all the good Daily Show clips being in Canada. :angry:

(Comedy Central gets routed to a Canadian site that never has the clips).
 
it seems the Left is far more irritated with the President than the right. on NPR, they were interviewing people in a bar in Pensacola, and the Obama supporters were far more disappointed with him than the Obama detractors, most of whom seemed to think there was little he could actually do.

i suppose i'm disappointed that this wasn't a moment where we began a comprehensive program to wean ourselves off of oil, but i blame the American people (or at least some of them) for being childish idiots and the GOP for exploiting this since the 1970s.

the biggest challenge here is not the leak but in drastically altering the nation's energy policy.

good luck with that.

(i'm paraphrasing, but i believe NPR told me this morning that the total amount of oil that has spilled into the ocean so far would be used up by the US economy in 4 minutes)
 
Well said, Irvine.

I definitely can see where the left is more disappointed. Obama was supposed to be the guy for their side for a change, and so far he hasn't always been catering to them. Which is bad in some ways, because policy-wise I think it'd be great, but at the same time, he's the president, he can't just cater to one side and one side only. Remember, that's what we didn't like about Bush. Not saying he should support the insane oil love that the right seems to have, 'cause he absolutely shouldn't, but still...

Too short-how long did they expect the speech to be? Optimistic? There's really no good turnaround from this oil spill, so how can we be optimistic about that? We can certainly try and do everything imaginable to avoid another situation like this, but this particular oil spill, there's really not much more we can do. I'll still hope for some miracle in solving that problem, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Sometimes you gotta face reality, horrible as it is. And why bother announcing a new bill? Again, has anyone paid any attention to how Congress operates lately? Good luck getting any sort of seriously decent energy bill through right now. I definitely think Obama should push for one, but let's see it actually survive a battle with Congress, and then we'll talk.

Yes, Obama should be taking as much executive charge as he should, but did everyone forget that on election night he said he wanted us ALL to work together? We can't expect Obama to wave a wand and solve all our problems, if the left is tired of the crap going on, then we have to get behind him and actually, you know, help him out. I think the left just seems to expect that Obama will come in and boom, all our problems are over. Well, it doesn't work that way. He needs our help, as well as help from the right, if they'd get off their "Obama's a racist/socialist/communist/illegal citizen" crap for once. Change does not come overnight. It does take some time. And effort. And cooperation. And patience. The Bush supporters, for all the issues I had with their policies, got out there and fought hard for whatever Bush wanted. Now it's time for the Obama supporters to do the same for Obama.

Also, Steve King, knock it off, please. Seriously. Just...shut up.

Angela
 
Irvine511 said:
it seems the Left is far more irritated with the President than the right. on NPR, they were interviewing people in a bar in Pensacola, and the Obama supporters were far more disappointed with him than the Obama detractors, most of whom seemed to think there was little he could actually do.
Click to expand...

That is the scary, bizarre thing about all of this.
Obama will likely take a bigger hit from the left.

The public mood, perception is not all that enlightened. In this day an age, people are lazy, they get a little information and just kind of intuit the rest.

Their gut feeling is this just wasn't handled the best way it could have been.
 
moonlit_angel said:
yes, obama should be taking as much executive charge as he should, but did everyone forget that on election night he said he wanted us all to work together? We can't expect obama to wave a wand and solve all our problems, if the left is tired of the crap going on, then we have to get behind him and actually, you know, help him out. I think the left just seems to expect that obama will come in and boom, all our problems are over. Well, it doesn't work that way. He needs our help, as well as help from the right, if they'd get off their "obama's a racist/socialist/communist/illegal citizen" crap for once. Change does not come overnight. It does take some time. And effort. And cooperation. And patience. The bush supporters, for all the issues i had with their policies, got out there and fought hard for whatever bush wanted. Now it's time for the obama supporters to do the same for obama.
Click to expand...

+1.
 
deep said:
That is the scary, bizarre thing about all of this.
Obama will likely take a bigger hit from the left.
Click to expand...

Not bizarre really. The higher the (false) hopes the bigger the fall.

Plays into the accusations that the left expected that he can perform miracles.
 
a lot of young supporters

are upset that they still have all that student debt

Michelle told them how bad that was and led them to believe 'change' was on the way
 
AliEnvy said:
Not bizarre really. The higher the (false) hopes the bigger the fall.

Plays into the accusations that the left expected that he can perform miracles.
Click to expand...


Hehehehe yeah!

No, wait He CAN'T perform miracles?

:wink:
 
i found this astute as, yet again, Democrats continue to seize defeat from the jaws of victory:


Democrats should show a little pride and purpose

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, June 17, 2010; A21

A weird malaise is haunting the Democratic Party.

That's a risky word to use, I know. It's freighted with bad history and carries unfortunate implications. So let's be clear: President Obama is not Jimmy Carter, not even close. And Obama's speech on Tuesday was nothing like Carter's 1979 "malaise speech," in which Carter never actually used that word. Obama gave a good and sensible speech that was not a home run.

What's odd is that Obama was seen as needing a home run. This is where the Democratic malaise comes in.

Democrats should feel a lot better than they do. They enacted a health-care bill that had been their dream for more than 60 years. They pulled the country out of a terrifying economic spiral. They are on the verge of passing the biggest reform of Wall Street since the New Deal. The public has identified enemies that are typically seen as Republican allies: oil companies and big bankers. And given the Republicans' past policies, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is at least as much their problem as Obama's.

On top of this, the GOP seems to be doing all it can to make itself unelectable, veering far to the right and embracing a Tea Party movement that, at its extremes, preaches the need for revolution. That sounds more like the old New Left than a reinvigorated conservatism. Oh, yes, and can you think of one thing Republicans stand for right now other than cutting spending? Never mind that they are conspicuously vague about what they'd cut.

Yet it is Democrats who are petrified, uncertain and hesitant -- and this was true before the oil spill made matters worse. Obama's bold rhetoric about "the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels" was not matched by specifics because he knows that nearly a dozen Senate Democrats are skittish about acting. Why does it so often seem that Republicans are full of passionate intensity while Democrats lack all conviction?

The month's most important document may prove to be a poll done for National Public Radio by the Democratic firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and the Republicans at Public Opinion Strategies. In the 70 most competitive House districts, 60 of them held by Democrats, the pollsters concluded that the Democrats "face a daunting environment in 2010."

"The results are a wake-up call for Democrats whose losses in the House could well exceed 30 seats," they declared. Two findings convey the whole: "Sixty-two percent of Republicans in Democratic districts describe themselves as very enthusiastic about the upcoming election," compared with only 37 percent of Democrats. And: "By 57 to 37 percent, voters in these 60 Democratic seats believe that President Obama's economic policies have produced record deficits while failing to slow job losses."

Paranoia is striking deep among Democrats, and this poll will only aggravate the disorder. In those competitive districts, Democratic incumbents will be tempted to hunker down, distance themselves from the president, urge their leaders to be cautious and run for the hills to seek refuge from a looming Republican wave.

But the numbers in the NPR survey are so bad that Democrats might pause before becoming lemmings. There is something preposterous about how the administration and congressional Democrats have lost every major public argument that they should be winning.

They lost it on a stimulus bill that clearly lifted the economy, as Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, argued persuasively in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. They are losing it on the health-care bill, a big improvement on the current system enacted through a process that made it look like a tar ball on an Alabama beach. They are losing it on the deficit even though it was Republicans who cut taxes twice while the Bush administration was starting two wars.

Obama is often criticized for being too professorial. The irony is that Republicans who have little to say about how to solve the nation's major problems are dominating the country's underlying philosophical narrative.

From Plaquemines Parish to Wall Street, we are seeing what happens when government takes too hands-off an approach to private economic actors. Yet the GOP is managing to sell the idea that the big issue in this election should be . . . government spending.

Professor Obama and his allies ought to be ashamed of this. The cure for malaise is to have a self-confident sense of purpose, and to act boldly in its pursuit.

E.J. Dionne Jr. - Democrats should show a little pride and purpose
Click to expand...
 
Excellent article. I couldn't agree more. I admire the Democrats not wanting to offend, I admire their wanting to compromise and not jump the gun all the time. Used in the right way, those qualities are fine and certainly worth supporting, and I can definitely understand that mindset, I don't like making people angry, either.

But I definitely do wish they'd fight harder for the good ideas they have. There's so many. I hear them talk in non-combative situations, I read some of their sites, and they share all these wonderful plans that I'd love to see implemented. The irony is in their quest to try and be as non-confrontational as possible, they do make people angry, unfortunately it's their own side. They need to come out and state, complete with all the facts behind them, all their ideas, and then say to the Republicans, "Now this is our proposal. If you have any worthwhile ideas we will certainly take them and implement them (see the healthcare bill, where a few good Republican ideas did make it into the final draft). Otherwise, if you're just going to sit there and say 'no' and not come up with anything, then we're going on without you. So if you don't want to be ignored, I suggest you get genuinely involved in the process and start working with us now."

Angela
 
NY Times

June 18, 2010
The Thrill Is Gone
By CHARLES M. BLOW

President Obama’s relationship with America, like many a young marriage, is growing sour.

That’s my surmise after reviewing recent polling and watching the carping that followed his Oval Office speech (which I thought was just fine, by the way).

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the magic has drained away. Even among his most ardent supporters, there now exists a certain frustration and disillusionment — not necessarily in the execution of his duties, but in his inability to seize moments, chart a course and navigate the choppy waters of public opinion.

What’s left for many is a big plume of disappointment and sadness lurking just beneath the surface.

Desperate to escape eight-years of an abusive relationship with a reckless cowboy and scared by a calculating John McCain who chose a feckless running mate, America was charmed by Obama’s supernal speeches and inspired by his vision of a happier ever after.

But once the marriage was official, reality set in and Obama tried to lower expectations. Life would not be lit by the soft glow of an eternal sunrise. Change would come slowly; pain would be felt presently; things would get worse before they got better.

In addition, he had to make tough choices (and not always the right ones) to steer us out of our darkest hour and secure a better future. He wasn’t always elegant in method or clear in message, and that allowed the more cynical side of America to find a footing and feed its fear.

This has left many on the left duking it out in a death match of finger-pointing, back-biting and navel-gazing. They have gone from applauding to defending, a turn many secretly resent and increasingly reject. A USA Today/Gallup poll released earlier this week found that 73 percent of Democrats thought that the president had not been tough enough in dealing with BP in regards to the oil spill. That was the same as the percentage of Republicans who thought so.

So this is where the rubber meets the road, for Obama and the country. Wooing and being wooed was the fun part. But everyone knows that maintaining a healthy and positive relationship always requires work.

The first step is acknowledgement: There is blame on both sides.

On one side is America — fickle and excitable, hotheaded and prone to overreaction, easily frightened and in constant need of reassurance.

On the other side stands Obama — solid and sober, rooted in the belief that his way is the right way and in no need of alteration. He’s the emotionally maimed type who lights up when he’s stroked and adored but shuts down in the face of acrimony. Other people’s anxieties are dismissed as irrational and unworthy of engagement or empathy. He seems quite comfortable with this aspect of his personality, even if few others are, and shows little desire to change it. It’s the height of irony: the presumed transformative president is stymied by his own unwillingness to be transformed. He would rather sacrifice the relationship than be altered by it.

Add to this tension the fact that conservative Blue Dog Democrats are doing everything they can to keep their jobs and Republicans are doing everything they can to make Obama lose his, and it only aggravates the situation.

As NPR’s Ron Elving wrote about a recent NPR poll that held a dire prediction for the Democrats in November: “The House Democratic majority is, as always, a struggle between the ‘sitting pretty’ faction that’s safe (this year as always) and the more fragile ‘scaredy cat’ faction that could be carried off by even the gentlest of anti-incumbent breezes.” The “scaredy cats” are the Blue Dogs.

In the Senate, Democrats are struggling to get Republicans to play ball. For instance, a Gallup poll released this week found that about 60 percent of Americans approve of Congress passing new legislation this year that would increase spending in order to create jobs and stimulate the economy. However, the same day that the president wrestled $20 billion from BP for a fund to be used to compensate those affected by the oil spill, Senate Democrats trimmed nearly $20 billion from the already-trimmed jobs bill in an effort to woo Republicans. Didn’t work. On Thursday, the Senate voted to block the bill.

The next step is compromise. Both sides will have to give a little.

America has to grow up and calm down. Expectations must be better managed. On balance, this president is doing a good job — not perfect, but good — particularly in light of the incredible mess he inherited. The Web site PolitiFact.com is tracking more than 500 promises Obama made on the campaign trail. Of the 168 promises where action has been completed, they judge Obama to have broken only 19. That’s not bad, and it must be acknowledged. We have to stop waiting for him to be great and allow him to be good.

For Obama’s part, he needs to forget about changing the culture and climate of American politics. That’s a lost cause. The Republicans and their Tea Party stepchildren are united in their thirst for his demise. Furthermore, a May Gallup report stated that Obama’s “first-year ratings were the most polarized for a president in Gallup history,” and his “approval ratings have become slightly more polarized thus far in his second year.” The U.S.S. Harmony has sailed. The president should instead re-evaluate the composition of his inner circle (which could use a shake-up) and the constitution of his inner self (which could use a wake-up). Allowing himself space to grow and change does not have to undermine his basic view of himself. There is a lot of space between a caricature and a man of character.

In other words, the president must accept the basic fact that he, as the agent of change, must himself be open to change.
Click to expand...

I thought that was an interesting take.
 
That is a unique take on the whole thing. Sad, but true as well. I like that there was actually some advice given on how to move forward from here on out as well. This was the best part, my favorite bit being in bold:

The next step is compromise. Both sides will have to give a little.

America has to grow up and calm down. Expectations must be better managed. On balance, this president is doing a good job — not perfect, but good — particularly in light of the incredible mess he inherited. The Web site PolitiFact.com is tracking more than 500 promises Obama made on the campaign trail. Of the 168 promises where action has been completed, they judge Obama to have broken only 19. That’s not bad, and it must be acknowledged. We have to stop waiting for him to be great and allow him to be good.

For Obama’s part, he needs to forget about changing the culture and climate of American politics. That’s a lost cause. The Republicans and their Tea Party stepchildren are united in their thirst for his demise. Furthermore, a May Gallup report stated that Obama’s “first-year ratings were the most polarized for a president in Gallup history,” and his “approval ratings have become slightly more polarized thus far in his second year.” The U.S.S. Harmony has sailed. The president should instead re-evaluate the composition of his inner circle (which could use a shake-up) and the constitution of his inner self (which could use a wake-up). Allowing himself space to grow and change does not have to undermine his basic view of himself. There is a lot of space between a caricature and a man of character.

In other words, the president must accept the basic fact that he, as the agent of change, must himself be open to change.
Click to expand...

Excellent suggestions for both sides. Whether or not everyone involved will listen and take it to heart, who knows, but it's about time somebody said this anyway. Thanks for sharing the article :).

Angela
 
Everyone is hitting on an important point in the last couple pages for sure.

People expected the guy to be perfect, so this is the let down.

Please. Not trying to be high and mighty here, but he was about my 5th choice in this life long Democrat's personal primary(Biden and Richardson were my favorites by a long shot).

I like the guy, but he had to win me over from the skeptical side, and win me over he did, throughout all of 2008.

I voted enthusiastically for him knowing, unlike some of my more idealistic, "Barack walks on water" friends(who can be forgiven for being naive and sheltered, not their fault) that he was walking into a mess that would take years, and a lot of patience, to clean up.

You want to know why I still was excited as hell that night? Why, as I forced my feet into my tied shoes and scrambled for my jacket to go and pick up pizza, I told my college roomate to call or text immediately if Florida or Ohio came in?

Because I saw Obama in the fall of 2008, and I saw him explain things to us like we were adults. You know, people who can be trusted with the truth, even if it hurts like hell to accept that we were falling off a cliff and had to bail out a bunch of jerks just to avoid the biggest calamity in the history of the country. Even if it hurts like hell to accept that tough choices have to be made.

The thing is, everyone who followed this with any kind of reasonable mind(which excludes the Palinite drill baby drillers and the "Barack the vote, Barack the revolution" crowd equally) knew that whoever won the 2008 election was inheriting the worst mess since FDR in 1932. Probably about on par, given the fact that FDR had a worse economy but not 2 wars. Its not like Obama was promising us bliss by now as is being implied by some of these articles about the honeymoon being over, and people want action not rhetoric, etc, etc.

I think the biggest problem is we, the American people, have, predictably, not responded well to being treated like adults. We have let Obama down. He leveled with us about the situation, asked for our help, and asked for our patience. We have in turn joined the goddamn Tea Party, mainstreamed the most ridiculous claims about the deficit and who is responsible for it and called Obama an idiot one termer overrated black jerk who doesn't belong in America, never mind the oval office.

No one is saying that we should just patiently wait happily and merrily for jobs to come back or for our retirement accounts to be full again, there should be some degree of anxiety and worry and impatience with the entire mess. However, could we at least be honest enough to see that this was not Obama's doing and that, no matter what he did, there was no way it could have been rectified entirely by now. Especially given the fact that all objective measures show we would have been much worse off now without the stimulus.

John McCain would have acted no different given the same circumstances. His advisers were all on board with a major, major stimulus to ward off catastrophe. It was debated in the Fall 08, and the candidates agreed here that a major stimulus was needed, and that the Bush half measures wouldn't fly. The same advisers(Mark Zandi, etc) have come out and said Obama was right to do the stimulus and that it has saved jobs.

So if we act like the adults Obama speaks to us as, we'll be able to see that he has done, as the article suggests, a good but not great job so far. Greatness may still come, who knows, Harry Truman is one of the great Presidents on most people's list, everyone hated the SOB at the time.

Its not unreasonable to suggest Obama needs to change his approach, or maybe change a few key people. I mean, he botched the health care debate pretty damn bad starting around this time last year and not letting up until a few weeks before the bill passed.
 
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Saying he has "lost count" of all the times when work demands have taken him away from his children, President Obama said Monday that his administration would move to raise awareness about "responsible fatherhood" and push to re-engage absent fathers with their families.

The announcement, coming one day after Father's Day, follows a year-long, six-city tour by administration officials focusing on fathers' roles and influences.

Speaking to a crowd of family advocates at a small theater in the Congress Heights neighborhood of the nation's capital, Obama reminded the group that his father left his family when Obama was 2 years old. Though his mother and grandparents "poured everything they had into me and my sister," he said, "I still felt the weight of that absence. It's something that leaves a hole in a child's life that no government can fill."

Obama said he would ask Congress to expand fatherhood and family programs. And he has asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to create a "Fathering Re-Entry Court" that would help fathers leaving prison get jobs and services they need to start making child support payments and reconnecting with families.

Saying the nation has "too many fathers missing from too many homes, from too many lives," Obama made a plea for dads to make an effort to be part of their children's lives, even on a simple level.

"Our children don't need us to be superheroes," he said. "They don't need us to be perfect. They do need us to be present. They need us to show up and give it our best shot, no matter what else is going on in our lives. They need us to show them — not just with words, but with deeds — that they, those kids, are always our first priority."

Recalling that work has often kept him away from his children at key times, he said, "I know I've missed out on moments in my daughters' lives that I'll never get back, and that's a loss that's hard to accept."

U.S. Census figures show that more than 24 million children, or about one in three, lived apart from their biological fathers in 2009, up from 11% in 1960. For African-American children, the 2009 figure was 64%.

Research has demonstrated that children raised by single parents don't do as well as others in school and have more behavior problems. Adolescents who have lived apart from one of their parents at some point in their childhood are twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to have a child before age 20 and 1.5 times as likely to be out of school or work by their late teens or early 20s.
 
Just posted it since it is getting some traction. Haven't read it.:D Will read it next day or two.
 
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