Obama: Not even close to the worst president ever.

[JulianTheApostate]

George Bush in 2003 tried to get the House to devise regulation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2005 and 2007 John McCain cosponsored Bills that would regulate Fannie and Freddie. Democrats fought against it, as I posted the shocking video earlier in this thread.

After reading this long Fortune article, this does looks like this a rare case in which Republican wanted more regulation of a business and Democrats want less. That's very unusual, since Republicans are usually strongly anti-regulation. The reversal of the typical ideologies arose because Republicans were very hostile to Fannie, while Democrats believed that Fannie does a great deal of good in providing more access to affordable housing.

Note that the Fannie and Freddie are small part of the current economic meltdown. As a worse problem, the private financial sector either collapsed or needed massive bailouts to avoid collapse. The economy could have handled mortgage failures; complex financial arrangements like collateralized debt obligations escalated those failures into a major economic turndown.

[DWill]

We're all human beings with the same emotions, desires, dreams and fears. I find it really hard to believe that Democrats are judging Republicans fairly or honestly or vice-versa. People are brain washed by their social group affiliations.

The difficulty you point out, Chris, of getting away from our biases is a big part of why I'm reluctant to wade into political discussion. When I do, I often discover later that my conviction wasn't based on much more than wanting to be on the "right" side, and on only partial data.

We had a huge rally in DC a few weeks ago, the John Stewart/Stephen Colbert affair billed as a rally "to restore sanity (an/or fear)." It was billed as apolitical, but of course it's impossible to get 250,000 people together for a non-political cause. It was the obverse of the Glen Beck rally several weeks previous. A lot was said about restoring civility, which with the ferocious attacks on Obama has been in short supply. I'm all for civility, but I'm a little suspect as to the timing of this, because two short years ago I believe most of the demographic at this rally wouldn't have cared much about being civil toward George W. Bush. It's when their side is under attack that they suddenly cry foul at the personal attacking.

[Saffron]

We had a huge rally in DC a few weeks ago, the John Stewart/Stephen Colbert affair billed as a rally "to restore sanity (an/or fear)." It was billed as apolitical, but of course it's impossible to get 250,000 people together for a non-political cause. It was the obverse of the Glen Beck rally several weeks previous. A lot was said about restoring civility, which with the ferocious attacks on Obama has been in short supply. I'm all for civility, but I'm a little suspect as to the timing of this, because two short years ago I believe most of the demographic at this rally wouldn't have cared much about being civil toward George W. Bush. It's when their side is under attack that they suddenly cry foul at the personal attacking.

I do not think your criticism is a fair one. I can not speak for everyone at the rally, but the main point that I took away and the most frequently sentiment appearing on signs is that it is high time to start working together to get something done. I saw one sign referring to loyal opposition; a concept that has gone by the wayside these past few years. Even if most of the folks in the crowd wouldn't have cared much about the attacks on Bush or even had been participants-- it doesn't mean that they are not fed up with the rigid bipartisan that has crippled our government.

[vetwriter]

I'm exhausted from people toeing their party line like Lemmings.

Both Democrats and Republicans do it. In my opinion just about everyone in this thread is doing it.

Read Robert Wright's Appendix to "The Evolution of God" about how easy it is for human beings to get sucked into believing just about anything by simply being exposed to the belief under the right conditions. In my opinion all of you appear to be brainwashed by your own political affiliations.

There is NO way Obama is as evil and destructive as the Republicans scream and NO way Bush was as much of a moron and war monger as the Democrats profess. Come on people. How the heck can two mature adults, equally educated, judge the same person so differently? The answer is simple. Those of you that already belong to the same social group as the person being judged are far more inclined to judge them favorably.

It is rare that I hear a single positive comment from anyone about any political party other than there own. Someone needs to write a book on this subject because I find it fascinating and I'm sure many other people would too. The people in this thread supporting Obama are registered Democrats or at least liberals. The two people bashing Obama are registered Republicans or at least conservatives.

Why the hell does everyone seem to ALWAYS defend their own political party? Surely this can't be how freethinkers behave. We're supposed to form our opinions independent of authority and biases but I really don't think it's happening here on BookTalk.org.

There is no way on this Earth that everyone is thinking clearly. I see people forgiving their own party and condemning every little petty misstep of the other party. Both sides are doing it.

We're all human beings with the same emotions, desires, dreams and fears. I find it really hard to believe that Democrats are judging Republicans fairly or honestly or vice-versa. People are brain washed by their social group affiliations.

I agree with you to a certain extent. There are some people who are capable of looking outside of their current situation and political party to make an educated decision on what they really feel is best for our country. I, for one, voted outside of my registered party for the last couple of elections because I did not like what the candidates for my party stood for. Also, depending on where you are from, the terms liberal and conservative can mean two different things. Believe me, big city liberals are a little different than small town liberals. It's all relative. One thing we need to remember, is that our president was elected by the people. We need to respect him, because bashing him the way we do never gets us anywhere. If anything, we look like fools to the citizens of other nations.

[johnson1010]

Man, i need to check threads more often. This has really gone to town since i left.

Ok, one post at a time....

Jim,

Those videos you posted are an excellent example of confirmation bias. Those were conservative hit jobs created during the election cycle meant to demonize democrats and scare the crap out of Phillies4ever and other like her.

If we go by what was in that video then we would have to argue that there was nobody responsible for the crisis but just a few democrats, who held all the cards, and refused to help people because they like being rich, way too much.

Sure democrats didn’t see the bubble coming. Neither did republicans. It was a product of wall street culture and our limitless ability to imagine that we will just keep making money indefinitely without any consequences.

That hit video asks you to google their info, sure. While you are at it, you can google “Martians killed JFK” and you will get links which confirm your secret hopes.
http://www.world-mysteries.com/doug_jfk.htm

So after decades of priding himself on being a deregulator, McCain was suddenly the lonely voice in the mob begging for regulations while the notoriously under-regulating democrats let all the rules fall to the wayside?

That is ass backwards.

For sure, both parties have to answer for that economic melt down, but it was a ship larger than any one man could steer, and Obama was not exactly in a position of authority on this event.

The truth is that Obama has spent a lot of money. Does anyone besides me remember bush pleading with us to push through the stimulus package? Did that just disappear from everyone’s mind like they lived in “1984”? Just like the run up to the war in Iraq, Bush jumped on all our tv’s and warned us of imminent danger to the US, this time in the shape of “too big to fail” businesses.

It is nonsense to try to write off the expense of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as in-consequential. Those wars have cost us one trillion dollars to date. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/weeki ... iller.html
http://costofwar.com/
And that is not counting what we will still BE paying out decades from now. Without any tax increases to pay for this outrageous extra spending, what do you imagine would happen to our economy? Without generating our own income (taxes) we have to borrow to pay for this egregious waste of money, usually from china. Meanwhile the Bush tax cuts which have been in place for this last decade or so are set to waste an additional 700 billion dollars padding the pockets of the super-rich. (That’s the real ELITES, tea partiers. I know you don’t like those people.) So, if we renew those policies that will be another 1.4 trillion dollars total that we will have borrowed.

What has all of this got to do with Obama’s presidency? Only that he has to clean it up. He didn’t make this mess, he’s stuck with the bill.

[johnson1010]

Jim,

I’m not sure what Jeremiah Wright has to do with anything, but since you put it out there I’ll smack it.

Wright makes incendiary comments, to be sure, but his statements are not completely without merit.

I would never suggest that the government invented HIV in order to kill people. For one, that technology is beyond our current abilities, and second, there are easier ways to kill people, just ask the native Americans.

America has caused grief all over the planet, and that is the truth. We were in a game of chess with the soviets and we never bothered to ask the pieces if they wanted to be moved. We did drop two nuclear weapons on a country which had been trying to surrender for the better part of the summer, but we had a new weapon and we wanted to show off our big green kill machine.

We have routinely backed terrorists in other countries so long as they were fighting someone else, only then we called them freedom fighters, much like they must think of themselves as freedom fighters when they attack us in Iraq, and we call them terrorists.

We have meddled in the affairs of others more than the Scooby gang, how is anybody surprised that we make enemies as well as allies out there. Is it in your imagination that we have been minding our business all this time, and THAT is how we became a superpower? Or THAT is why we have such a huge, powerful military arm?

I think we can all rightly condemn the past atrocities of the united states, and we should. Forgetting them, or trying to pave over them only dooms us to repeat the mistakes of the past. Shouldn’t germany be mindful of the actions of their ancestors? Shouldn’t WE? Minorities across the spectrum have particular grievance they could lay at the US’s doorstep, and it is our obligation to recognize where our ancestors have misstepped and ensure we never repeat their crimes of ignorance, greed, and murder.
Wright expresses his anger that America has treated his people as a second class of citizen, and within his own lifetime. Is he wrong to point out that the US has had a history of injustice and un-equal treatment of it’s citizens? Is he wrong to draw our attention to the continuing possibility of racial oppression and mistreatment? You may fault his language, but the points are valid.

The professionally offended were really lapping it up when those clips of Wright came out, swearing, using vulgar terminology, or basically not having been first vetted for media fitness. Well, he wasn’t running. He was an official at Sunday fashion show (church). You think what Wright said is offensive?

Have you listened to Limbaugh, Hannity, or Beck? Hell, have you listened to the very candidates fielded by the republicans? Calling black guy monkeys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90z0PMnKwI
, threatening armed insurrection,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/0 ... 09518.html
or actively persecuting an ethnicity, the tea partiers have no bad words for them. It’s a good thing they didn’t try to get everybody health care. THEN they would have had a fight on their hands.

The bottom line here again is that this has nothing to do with Obama, or the state of our country.

[johnson1010]

Phillies43v34 wrote:

…He bails out everyone not in the least bit concerned that there is no money, or it is hidden somewhere, to bail out the Postal Service. … but he is not helping the Americans in general. We he people do not want to see money being thrown around but used to help find jobs for the unemployed; and remember unemployment is at an all-time high! Also, students attending college should be helped by financial aid and not turn down for any reason! Obama promised that he would help all schools including college. So what happened to that promise? Ask yourself that question.

I think its worth mentioning again that you seem to be completely against giving money to anybody, or anything, that is not directly related to getting the things that you want. Specifically college tuition for your kids and an increase in your government stipend. Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious?

don't even go there with me about the war that started after 9/11. All those thousands of American citizens lost their lives that day would agree that we had a retaliate somehow for what was done.... it was our only option but to go overseas and retaliate for all the damage that had been done here and all the lives that were lost. …The second Bush had no choice but to send us to war to show these Moslems and others who were involved that we mean business; we were coming there to do our job the way they had done to us.

And we squandered much more in the aftermath of that attack than we lost during it. We have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s, each one with a family, each member of that family seeing that death as meaningless. They are as angry as you are Phillies, because they didn’t have anything to do with the attack on 9/11. By your own standards, you are telling them that they shouldn’t just sit there and do nothing. By your own standards, you are calling them to war against us.

Certainly the aggressors should have been punished. NOTE, they still have NOT been punished. Certainly we needed to do that. Was war the only option? Absolutely not. It isn’t even close to the best option that would have been available to us.

In my lifetime, the best president was Reagan. That is my opinion and just let it stand. I can tell you are a stout Democrat and so you feel you can lambash all the Republicans. Wake up and smell the roses! Obama took a situation that was starting to become a critical one, and he hasn't even been president for two years and look at the state of our economy! So now, can you say for sure that this is all the Republicans fault?????? do you get the Rasmussen polls in your e-mail. If you do or even if you don't, only 28% of the citizens of this country who were polled are in favor of what Obama has done. That number is sickening and yet its true. This will be my last post on here as it is stressing me out too much because I have an illness in which I have to stay calm. So be it as it may, just read the Rasmussen reports and you will see the truth in that report is always accurate! They declared long before the election that the tea party would win and as a tea party activist, a strong victory was to be had on election Day. so, KUDDOS to the tea party!

It is certainly not just the republican’s fault, but they do bear a large burden here. There is a concept of inertia at play here which you just are not understanding. The united states is big. Physically, geographically, and economically. Once the economy gets moving, it takes a while for it to change course.

Your Rassmussen stats are only showing people’s opinion of a thing, not the actual value of a thing. And opinions are like anuses. Everyone has one, and there is usually some shit coming down the pipe.

I hope you feel better soon, Phillies. Get some rest.


OK, im done for now.

[Kevin]

I would not consider Obama to be the worst president even if I was only to consider the last two to occupy the office. I do consider him an average Democratic politician who convinced a large percentage of America that he was more than just an average Democratic politician. He is a moderately conservative, pro-corporate, pro-globalization, neoconservative who talks a big game and then doesn't do anything to promote the stated agenda prior to the next election season rolling around - at which time he again talks a good game. If you think I'm bad look at the Republicans - - using fear just like the Republicans do. So in other words, he is yet one more socialist.

[johnson1010]

Socialist.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[laurcunningham]

If you add up how much each administration has spent since George Washington to George W. Bush, Obama has spend more than all of them combined ALREADY.

Where did you get your graph and who created those videos?