So how muh longer until we can say Obama sucks?

[Igottago]

Yes, the Obama presidency has been a massive failure. (obvious green text)

I'm surprised it took HOZ this long to post something like this. I would've thought it would be coming only days after Obama took office, not months.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

That's kind of an interesting comment, actually. Do you mean that the internet may actually polarize debate, much as it does on message boards, where people hide behind their anonymity and abandon any effort at civil discourse and instead spend their time flaming people who feel differently from them?

You may be right--but if you are, we're all screwed--aren't we?

Kind of a tangent, but there is a really good point in here.

Has the internet caused us to have more extreme opinions, and therefore defend them so vehemently against others?

Is this the reason civil discourse has fallen by the wayside?

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Kind of a tangent, but there is a really good point in here.

Has the internet caused us to have more extreme opinions, and therefore defend them so vehemently against others?

Is this the reason civil discourse has fallen by the wayside?

I dont think the internet has caused extreme opinions, its just an easier way to express those opinions.

If anything I think the internet has caused much higher discourse and exposure to different opinions. This in turn will probably make it harder for the general public to share a more common collective opinion. Every little issue nowadays is examined to death online, with millions of people able to speak up on what they think about it. Kind of like this thread.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Kind of a tangent, but there is a really good point in here.

Has the internet caused us to have more extreme opinions, and therefore defend them so vehemently against others?

Is this the reason civil discourse has fallen by the wayside?

It does make you wonder if the relative anonymity of the internet is actually the poison that has killed civility. I don't know if we can claim that discourse was always "civil" in the old days, but I seem to remember having a ton of heated political discussions with people that I still consider friends, and when you're face to face you really can never say "you just believe that because you're a ######bag." You are sort of forced to come to terms with the other person's opinion and at least understand it, even if you can't necessarily agree.

On a discussion board, you're not forced to do any such thing. You can simply fall back on mocking other viewpoints, or flaming people who hold them--and you can demonize "the other side" to your heart's content.

I don't know--I wonder if Gozer has a really good point here. Not that we're all discussing things on message boards, but that because the internet is so vast, we can limit our "genuine" interactions to people who already agree with us. And in that sense, we can create the false impression that only one view is worth discussing, and anything else is just totally beyond the pale.

I hope that's not the direction we're going, but I do feel like the political discourse in the U.S. has become more hostile over the past 10 years--on both sides.

[CaptainCrunch]

He's got two years, thats when we start seeing real positioning for the next election, and we start seeing the stronger candidates.

The problem with Obama, and its a problem that every incoming president can have is that he campaigned very strongly on hope and change, and now he's shown in a lot of ways he's still trapped in the same system and he's making mistakes.

Plus, I think that his bailout policies will actually extend the recession in the states, not shorten it.

[transplant99]

I dont know how successful Obama will be or will not be...both domestically and elsewhere.

One thing is for sure though....I certainly wont be making a decision one way or the other in the first 2 months. That would be futile as well as stupid.

It will be at least a couple years before the bailout success or lack of, is able to be determined...and the Iraq situation wont be realized for years and years...maybe a decade or more.

[Weiser Wonder]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

That's kind of an interesting comment, actually. Do you mean that the internet may actually polarize debate, much as it does on message boards, where people hide behind their anonymity and abandon any effort at civil discourse and instead spend their time flaming people who feel differently from them?

You may be right--but if you are, we're all screwed--aren't we?

My intuition says that Bush would have been hated if he was President at any point in history. He was very popular at points and won re-election solidly, but by the time he exited office he had alienated pretty much everyone with either incompetency or his insistence of doing everything in secret.

The right wing is going after Obama hard, but I really doubt it's sticking with the American people at all. At this point they trust Obama and are confident in his abilities. Obama is trying to be as transparent and as available to the American people as possible. He knows his image inspires confidence and calm in the public so he's getting out there as much as possible. He is trying to be in touch with the masses, and that means embracing the new age of communication, no matter how ridiculous facebook, twitter and text messaging are.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

That's kind of an interesting comment, actually. Do you mean that the internet may actually polarize debate, much as it does on message boards, where people hide behind their anonymity and abandon any effort at civil discourse and instead spend their time flaming people who feel differently from them?

You may be right--but if you are, we're all screwed--aren't we?

That's why we needed Gore in the white house. If he saw those shenanigans going on, he'd shut down the internet real quick. He invented it - he's the only one that can destroy it.

[octothorp]

Sure, he didn't do very good in the first round, but he bounced back in the second round, and I think you've got to wait until at least the elite eight to really judge his bracket. For the most part he's played it perhaps a little too conservative, but he did pick Syracuse to upset Oklahoma, and ultimately that game probably decides the fate of his bracket: if he's right about that upset and the top seeds win in the rest of the round, then ultimately you've gotta say that it was at least mildly successful. And I'm far from an Obama apologist. Personally, I'd love to see his bracket get completely destroyed by a couple one-seeds getting upset at the sweet 16 level.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

That's why we needed Gore in the white house. If he saw those shenanigans going on, he'd shut down the internet real quick. He invented it - he's the only one that can destroy it.

But there is more than one internet though. Damn Bush and his evil genius.

[peter12]

8750 earmarks in the stimulus bill. Oh pork, pork, pork is what all Democrats are good for.

[tussery]

Originally Posted by peter12

8750 earmarks in the stimulus bill. Oh pork, pork, pork is what all Politicians are good for.

Fixed.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by peter12

8750 earmarks in the stimulus bill. Oh pork, pork, pork is what all Democrats are good for.

Yeah, but nobody cares about pork, or about Obama's initial 'worst economy since the depression' approach. Which he only did to get his spending bill passed.

Unless he prematurely pull the troops out of Iraq, which is a concern(ask Micheal Yon).....and simply 'ignores' Afghanistan(which he isn't)....or Iran nukes Israel(sure you can blame Obama, as well as the rest of the world)....or China invades Taiwan(what exactly is the US supposed to do?).....or Russia gives nuclear missiles to some terrorists(I doubt George Washington could have prevented that if Russia really wanted too)......or the world ends in 2012(I think we can blame Obama for that )......meh, his foreign policy is big time wait and see right now. Might be pissing off all the idiots who got duped into thinking he would pull the troops out the day he got into office, but too bad.

As for his domestic approach. Different story. $1.8trillion dollar deficit, $10 trillion more in debt in the next 10 years.....makes Bush's wasteful spending look small.

Then again, maybe I'm the only one in the world concerned about hyper-inflation.

And thats not even talking about his so-called 'bailout'....which is also wait and see. I posted a 'blog' the other day in the economy thread about the stock market not being a good indicator of how the economy was doing.

So, maybe its wait and see there.

Then again, I also think Obama and team don't know what to do about the economy, so they're just burning money as quickly as possible in order to make it seem like they're doing something, and when someone opposes that idea(Gov. Sanford)....they attack him without even bothering to look at what he is proposing.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by peter12

8750 earmarks in the stimulus bill. Oh pork, pork, pork is what all Democrats are good for.

Yeah cause there was nothing in there for Republicans... Oh an Republicans never put pork in bills either...

What a stupid comment.

It's a problem of the US representative system, which they desperately need to fix, but both sides are equally guilty of abusing it.

As far as passing judgment, I know all the far right wing cannons on here want to get their licks in because of the general Bush trashing but you're going to have to wait a while yet. It's been two months and he's inherited a lot of problems. I already like some of the moves he's made especially internationally and the closing of the prisons, yet I feel he's come up short domestically with stuff like the stimulus bill.

However, if you really wanna turn this into a pissing match (which as I already illustrated, I can find good things and bad things already so I don't see the point) I'll say this. He's already done better than Bush, and he's inherited most of his problems from Bush, so I can't even worry about the comparison.

Put that in your pipe HOZ.

[TheDragon]

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Mike F

After 8 years of Bush trying to hide from direct press interaction, this is a welcome change.

Indeed.

Six weeks after President Barack Obama appointed a blue-ribbon panel to help him dig America out of its economic crisis, the board has yet to hold an official public meeting.

Now, the administration finds itself in a Catch-22: It does not want to say that the president’s economic panel, announced amid much fanfare, is not meeting during the worst economic crisis in generations. But if it is meeting, where’s the announcement, the agenda, the minutes? In short, where’s the sunshine?

“If the president wants to talk to his advisory committee, it seems to me he ought to do that in the open,” said Sidney Shapiro, a law professor at Wake Forest University. “There ought to be accountability for private people who address the government. It seems to me it becomes even more important, not less important, when you have a presidential advisory committee.”

Asked about Obama’s right to solicit candid suggestions, Shapiro said, “If he wants private advice, he should pick up the telephone. He can call anybody he wants. If he wants to form a presidential advisory committee, they ought to meet in public.”

On Monday, after an early version of this story posted on POLITICO, Psaki acknowledged that such discussions have taken place by phone. “There are smaller conference calls of subgroups in preparation for the quarterly meetings. These do not involve the president or federal officials. These are not open to the media or the public, which not only abides by the, but it is also for the purpose of preparing for the public meetings,” she said.

Through an aide, one board member told POLITICO of a board meeting at the White House on Feb. 26. The White House did not respond to a question about that session.

So far, none of the commission members’ meetings have been public or officially announced in accordance with the 1972 federal law which governs such groups, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, or FACA.

That law has spawned a series of legal battles over the years, including fights over access to the Grace Commission on government waste set up by President Ronald Reagan, First Lady Hillary Clinton’s health care task force, and Vice President Dick Cheney’s task force on energy policy. Secrecy surrounding those panels sparked public outrage – and serious political blowback — that helped fuel Obama’s vows for more open government.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20343.html

Very open and forthright with the public.

[Daradon]

Interesting post Azure, good to know.

[Azure]

Friendly fire from the very liberal NYT.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20325.html

—Krugman, who is perhaps the most frequent Obama critic at the paper but also a Nobel Prize-winning economist whose analysis carries considerable sway in liberal circles, not even waiting for the administration’s bank plan announcement this week before panning it.

“It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago,” Krugman wrote on his blog. “The zombie ideas have won. The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system — that what we’re facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank.”

The Princeton economist turned opinion columnist predicted: “This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work. What an awful mess.

Can we get around from thinking that its just a bunch of right-wing 'blowhards' who think Obama is failing, to some 'supporters' of his who have serious problems with his proposals?

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Mike F

A huge part of what is going to turn things around is restoring confidence, .

A noonish comment . . . .

For much of the Bush presidency, the issue regarding economic fortunes was about overconfidence, not a lack of confidence.

As the decade progressed, corporate and household balance sheets took on more leverage, suggesting comfort across the broad swath of the public in the prevailing economic climate.

In spite of an unpopular war in 2003, Bush was re-elected with a larger mandate, likely because the USA was emerging from recession with sunnier days ahead.

The lesson there is that it's always about what is impacting the life of the average voter. The economy generally ALWAYS impacts the life of the average voter whereas the unpopular war was something the average American never had to make a personal sacrifice towards given it's been the cheapest significant conflict relative to GDP in the history of the republic. Conversely, his party was swept from power across all stages as just as the outcome of the conflict looked markedly better but the economy went into the toilet big time.

Jimmy Carter rode his way into the deep downturn of 1979-80 and was replaced by Ronald Reagan, who rode a steep upturn into a two-term mandate.

In the early 1990's, George Bush 1, after a successful Gulf War, was at 73% in approval ratings . . . . but out of office a year-and-a-half later on a recession-bound economy. Ditto Brian Mulroney.

Bill Clinton rode out of the recession early and benefited from a large bubble through the rest of the 1990's, exiting only three months before the market caved in.

GW Bush II, in spite of an unpopular war, was riding an economy emerging from recession and was re-elected handily.

Obama will have the benefit of similar timing.

Three and a half years from now, the stock market will likely be higher than it is today.

Three and a half years from now, house prices will likely be trending higher, rather than lower.

Three and a half years from now, the economy will likely be gushing along, not just struggling along.

All of the above is likely to occur because of Obama or, more likely, in spite of him.

Economic cycles come and go, with governments largely irrelevant to their passage, at least, in my opinion. Some politicians benefit by timing, others suffer from timing.

Obama is taking office at a perfect, Reagan-esque moment and will likely see two terms in spite of what he might be up to.

The Bush administration was right to attack the huge problems facing financial services firms and belatedly, Obama is doing the same thing . . . . and that's the right call.

Whether or not we need to save GM or build bridges is really where the debate should lie. We probably don't need to do either and these huge spending plans are probably a waste of money.

I don't know if I should credit Obama with more brains than he has because I suspect he's going to be just plain lucky in backloading a lot of this spending he's talking about.

As a result, most likely, a lot of it may never happen because 1) financial services is the only thing needing saving to end this global downturn and 2) as such, because the financial services industry is all about confidence in institutions, this downturn is going to be over a lot sooner than people think.

We only need to witness the astonishing effect on markets and confidence as a whole a few weeks ago when Citigroup said it was cash flow positive for the previous two months . . . . that shows how important confidence in financial institutions really is.

Financial institutions, even when everything is rosy, are impressively levered. The traditional relationship, established through hundreds of years, is that you and nine friends bring $1 each to the bank and they turn around and lend out $100. The premise is that no two or three of you, let alone 10, are going to show up on the same day asking for your $1 back.

Banking is and always has been a game of confidence. But that is essentially what happened in September/October - all ten of you were showing up looking for your money. The blood flowing through the global economic body stopped abruptly. No one financial institution trusted the other to meet its obligations.

Confidence is essential to financial institutions and financials are essential to the economy as they represent the blood flowing through the system. No blood flow, you die. Pretty simple.

The rest of it - economic cycles - come and go on their own.

The lesson repeated before this all started but always good to remember at the end is that confidence is far cheaper to maintain than it is to restore. Big time.

Also, for Obama, timing will be everything.

My two cents.

Cowperson

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I don't know--I wonder if Gozer has a really good point here. Not that we're all discussing things on message boards, but that because the internet is so vast, we can limit our "genuine" interactions to people who already agree with us. And in that sense, we can create the false impression that only one view is worth discussing, and anything else is just totally beyond the pale.

Thanks for the kudos. You articulate what I was trying to get at well. Another byproduct of what you explained is that we can see the extreme of every point of view. Much like an Oiler fan could come on CP and reasonably conclude "Flames fans hate Dion and Kipper" or "Canuck fans are planning the parade" when those are relatively unpopular opinions among them - the same is true with political extremism. Both sides cite the zaniest thing on the other side, then an echo chamber amplifies it on each side (message boards), until anything resembling civility is devolved into: