Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
You know, the only people who I ever hear calling Obama a "savior" are ######bags like Bill O'Reilly or cretins like Glenn Beck.
People who voted for Obama weren't hoping for a saviour--they were hoping for someone with a modicum of decency and competence. After 8 years of "leadership" from an out-of-his-depth aging frat boy with no capacity for critical thought, any alternative started to look really good.
This whole "oh, he's not a saviour therefore he's crap" thing is--sorry to say it--really, really stupid. Obama's just a politician. Sometimes he'll be on the money, sometimes he won't. He's still a much better president than Bush, but that really is setting the bar very low indeed. Whether he'll be a better president than Clinton, or even a better president than Reagan--well that remains to be seen. But it's way too early to tell.
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David Brooks looks at the declining political fortunes of Barack Obama in the New York Times today . . . . Brooks is a rare right wing columnist in a decidedly left wing institution but takes a fairly matter-of-fact gaze of the declining popularity of the left - or more precisely independents abandoning Obama - coming out of the 2008 election.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/op...s.html?_r=1&hp
I've said in this forum before that Obama's timing entering office couldn't have been more fortuitous given he would be taking the reigns at the bottom of a recession while 2012 would likely be nearer the top of an economic cycle, almost regardless of his own actions.
The guy in office always looks like a genius with a halo in those situations.
History consistently favours re-election in those circumstances, even if the President has little to do with the turn of fortunes. Economic cycles tend to come and go, almost regardless of who is in office and what their policies are.
Fortune favours good timing just as bad timing can be a death sentence (GW Bush I was at 73% in the polls after the first Gulf War and out of office a year and a half later on a recession economy as an example).
Even today, it would be hard to believe Obama wouldn't be President again after 2012 if we use history and economic cycles as any guide.
Yet . . . . .
Cowperson