Watch his body language and his eyes; listen to his intonations. Very, very little of what he does has any spontaneity or ring of authenticity to it. So many times, when he’s speaking off the teleprompter, almost every line he speaks is like a joke that falls flat: the audience (press or whoever) goes dead silent and still, like they don’t know what their response should be.

He’s just roleplaying.

Utterly false. He played along with the political machine, and in those few cases where, as a legislator, he had to opportunity to cast a vote in opposition to the machine he instead voted with it.

Funny thing, but I don’t have too much respect for a guy who belonged to a church that demanded a non-negotiable committment to Africa, and at the same time called on God to damn America.

I also don’t have too much respect for a guy who enters into ventures with America-hating, communist, traitors like Bill Ayers.

As a matter of fact, I don’t respect one damned thing about Barack Hussein Obama, or the political party he belongs to, and I intend to disrespect him pretty much 24/7 for the next four years.

Yeah, drafting 16,000,000 people into the armed forces will tend to do that.

Unfortunately, 400,000 of the people FDR “employed” wound up getting killed, which usually isn’t considered to be a desirable aspect of one’s employment…especially when the employment is under duress.

i have to laugh when i hear the new mantra from the republicans. the one about the new deal not working out. (if it has to do with people being supported instead of stepped on, or workers getting their fair share they consider that “not working out”)

in fact, FDR brought unemployment down from 25% to 9%. he also provided social services, work for artists otherwise totally unemployable, country campgrounds for those youngsters who might have been criminals instead of just without resources, social security pensions with no means testing so no one felt they were on the dole, job loss insurance so we wouldn’t starve to death looking for a new gig, and welfare to secure the poorest of the poor, revenue sharing that brought free higher education to those with merit, and of course, eleanor roosevelt.

it worked out.

Obama DOES come out of Chicago Politics. Not by being a part of the corrupt Daley Machine, but because he cut his political teeth thwarting them. He played on THEIR turf, with ALL of them against him – and he won, fair and square. He challenged the Daley-candidate’s signatures on her petition, then challenged the bad ones – of which there were many. Daley-candidates presume they’ll win, because they always do, so they got sloppy about signatures. After the challenge, she didn’t have enough signatures to get on the ballot. I grew up in the area, and know the scenario there.

Fair and square. But to claim that Obama is a Chicago politician in the manner of the Daley machine (i.e., corrupt) is the purest ignorance.

He beat the Daley Machine honestly and fairly, and they HATE him for it. He also won the nomination, over a stellar shoe-in like Hillary. Then he went on to win the election against long-time insider and “war hero” John McCain. Does anyone think he could have done ALL of that without some brains and savvy?

Yet many here think he’s now going to be a mental slave to former Clinton appointees, or caving in to certain other groups. From WHERE was he supposed to select his cabinet? From the general population? He needs EXPERTISE in those fields, all of whom have been in other administrations. In his vetting of them, you can bet he has ascertained that they will cooperate with him wholeheartedly in his efforts. If they don’t, he can replace them. He’s nobody’s fool, and I see no hint that he’s wazooing us, as many here claim. That’s just sour grapes from the far right. I guess they don’t WANT to believe the dude is for real.

And since when is “savvy” a virtue when the candidate is in YOUR party and deviousness when it exists in the other? It’s the lightswich mentality – a thing is either on or off, good or evil, no gray areas. I’d hate to have a mind as limited as that.

Of course he voted “present” on many bills. Because many bills are loaded with pork and other issues are addressed in a partisan fashion which are NOT the subject of the bill. He didn’t like the bad stuff, tho he might have voted for the bills without it.

People who REALLY THINK understand that a “present” vote is a form of protest about the bill’s CONTENTS. It’s saying, “I could vote for this bill, but not with all that other JUNK in it.”

When did Americans decide to be so ignorant and proud? Thinking isn’t enough, chum. You gotta know how to feed solid information into your brain, before you can think about anything.

One good thing about the Internet. It is showing us just HOW many people think, from which we can be better able to recognize attitudes from opinions. I read LOTS of attitudes here, and they’re all dead giveaways because of the lack of solid facts to support them. Assumptions are made based on other assumptions, and lots of people see nothing wrong with that. Except people who really DO think, those who do some homework once in a while.

Obama isn’t even president yet, yet many are already dissing him. With all he has to deal with, he’ll make a LOT of people angry with him. Nobody else could avoid that. Virtually NONE of our problems can be solved painlessly for all. No matter what he does, people will be all over him like ugly on a sow. But he knows that, too.

America chose BRAINS for a change. REAL Americans are the ones who want to see our nation healed, and it matters little who brings it about, and who gets credit for it. It just matters that it gets DONE.

Give the guy a break.

The very idea of saying that leftists should move to Europe and leave America for those who love liberty is a vile and malevolent thing to say.

Yet it reflects the many vile and malevolent attitudes of the right. I see more of that in right-wingers than left-wingers. More foul language, more circular logic, more bigotry and mental leapfrog. More ignorance.

Of course, Obama is going to have problems from Congress – not just on the right, either. ALL of those people have been steeping in lobbyist juice for decades – they don’t know ANY other way to be. They’re partisans, on both sides, but even more, they are BOUGHT. Both sides. It’s hard to deal with people whose partisanship isn’t your own, but it’s far worse to deal with people who have been bought – of whatever stripe.

THAT is part of the change he intends to make, to keep the people who buy politicians from doing it any more. And whether you’re on the left or the right, you should WELCOME that idea. Many on the right won’t, of course, because those lobbyists serve their private agendas (guns, racism, theocratic zealotry, mega-wealthy), and those count more than the country does. But the right doesn’t own all the culpability for that. Left politicians are bought, too, by other groups.

Obama’s landslide was, in a way, a public referendum to END lobbying and buying of influence in our government.

Obama fought, tooth and nail, to keep lobby money and influence at arm’s length. And did a better job of it than any politician, to date. He did it for the sole purpose of having a free hand to eliminate the “behind closed doors” influences on our government that serve private interests at the expense of the public ones. FOR A CHANGE.

Can he pull it off? He intends to, but keep in mind that, once in office, he’ll be in a room full of alligators when dealing with Congress, and not all of them are Repubs.

Remember? He said he wanted to change “how business is done” in Washington. He meant it.

Getting rid of private influence for gain and personal agendas should be a truly bipartisan subject. Perhaps we should have a national referendum to eliminate ALL lobbyists. It’s hard to imagine ANY American who would not want OUR needs to come first.

And that’s what Obama IS trying to do. You can’t hope to unify the country by leaning too far either way – centrism is the moderate way to go, and is the only sensible place from which to run a country. Flexibility is almost unknown at the far left and right. But flexibility is what can HEAL America.

Of course he can’t unify us all – Obama is, if nothing else, a solid realist. THAT will also bode well for us, if he uses it properly. I think he wants to. Whether he can or not will depend on reining in some in his own party to act against their “owners.” And before you get haughty about Dems having owners, I’ll point out that the right has more of them – and they’re more powerful, too. Nobody is clean. Obama wants to clean out the Augean Stables, not just of the vile Bush administration, but wherever the doodoo exists in Congress, too. Even Hercules would be overwhelmed at the task before Obama.

I only know one thing about him for sure: he is going to give it all he’s got. But even THAT makes him remarkable and one of a kind among politicians. So let’s give the dude his headway. Patience. If he can solve even ONE of our gargantuan problems, it’ll be an astonishing accomplishment for him.

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/12/california-liberals-utopia.html

“Buyer’s Remorse”