How Obama's Long Game Will Outsmart His Critics

[Keddie]

An article by Andrew Sullivan: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html

 

This article explains the many misconceptions both conservatives and liberals have about Obama, and why he should be reelected.

 

Some key points:

"On the economy, the facts are these. When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s, there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system, and unemployment and debt—lagging indicators—were about to soar even further. No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. Economies take time to shift course."

"The great conservative bugaboo, Obamacare, is also far more moderate than its critics have claimed. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit, not increase it dramatically, as Bush’s unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug benefit did. It is based on the individual mandate, an idea pioneered by the archconservative Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, and, of course, Mitt Romney, in the past. It does not have a public option; it gives a huge new client base to the drug and insurance companies; its health-insurance exchanges were also pioneered by the right. It’s to the right of the Clintons’ monstrosity in 1993, and remarkably similar to Nixon’s 1974 proposal. Its passage did not preempt recovery efforts; it followed them. It needs improvement in many ways, but the administration is open to further reform and has agreed to allow states to experiment in different ways to achieve the same result. It is not, as Romney insists, a one-model, top-down prescription. Like Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative, it sets standards, grants incentives, and then allows individual states to experiment. Embedded in it are also a slew of cost-reduction pilot schemes to slow health-care spending. Yes, it crosses the Rubicon of universal access to private health care. But since federal law mandates that hospitals accept all emergency-room cases requiring treatment anyway, we already obey that socialist principle—but in the most inefficient way possible. Making 44 million current free-riders pay into the system is not fiscally reckless; it is fiscally prudent. It is, dare I say it, conservative."

 

"What liberals have never understood about Obama is that he practices a show-don’t-tell, long-game form of domestic politics. What matters to him is what he can get done, not what he can immediately take credit for. And so I railed against him for the better part of two years for dragging his feet on gay issues. But what he was doing was getting his Republican defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to move before he did. The man who made the case for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was, in the end, Adm. Mike Mullen. This took time—as did his painstaking change in the rule barring HIV-positive immigrants and tourists—but the slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner in which it was accomplished made the changes more durable. Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does."

 

"This is where the left is truly deluded. By misunderstanding Obama’s strategy and temperament and persistence, by grandstanding on one issue after another, by projecting unrealistic fantasies onto a candidate who never pledged a liberal revolution, they have failed to notice that from the very beginning, Obama was playing a long game. He did this with his own party over health-care reform. He has done it with the Republicans over the debt. He has done it with the Israeli government over stopping the settlements on the West Bank—and with the Iranian regime, by not playing into their hands during the Green Revolution, even as they gunned innocents down in the streets. Nothing in his first term—including the complicated multiyear rollout of universal health care—can be understood if you do not realize that Obama was always planning for eight years, not four. And if he is reelected, he will have won a battle more important than 2008: for it will be a mandate for an eight-year shift away from the excesses of inequality, overreach abroad, and reckless deficit spending of the last three decades. It will recapitalize him to entrench what he has done already and make it irreversible."

[Saffire]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/dear-andrew-sullivan-why-focus-on-obamas-dumbest-critics/251528/

 

After reading Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek essay about President Obama, his critics, and his re-election bid, I implore him to ponder just one question. How would you have reacted in 2008 if any Republican ran promising to do the following?

 

(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (13) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.

[Keddie]

I would feel the exact same way I do about Obama. Disappointed about some things, pleased with others. Congrats on the pointless post, especially since half of these aren't even true.

[Saffire]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64_KK-TXSpI&]Stuff Obama Supporters Say - YouTube[/ame]

[Kiame]

That awkward moment when you have nothing to contribute so you post a 3 minute long video of back to back straw men.

 

--

 

Keddie you hit the nail on the head when you said "disappointed with some things, pleased with others". That sums up Obama's presidency. I wholeheartedly believe he is the superior choice over Romney and Gingrich - the two front runners from the GOP. Those two are bad news and they are far more disingenuous than Obama is.

[Saffire]

Keddie you hit the nail on the head when you said "disappointed with some things, pleased with others". That sums up Obama's presidency.

 

That awkward moment when you can't cite specific "things" you're referring to, instead opting to use vague platitudes:

 

I liked some of the stuff Stalin did, but I was against other stuff.

[Kiame]

That awkward moment when you can't cite specific "things" you're referring to, instead opting to use vague platitudes:

 

I liked some of the stuff Stalin did, but I was against other stuff.

 

I can cite specific things, I just don't see the point. Most people can assume what I dislike and like about Obama. I'm not going to waste an hour of my time going through every decision Obama has made and whether or not I agree with it just for your sake. You're not worth it buddy - especially because I know you'll just pick one sentence out of context from the 100 I wrote focus on that, miss the point, throw skewed statistics, remind us all how paranoid you are and then vanish.

 

Really not worth it. I know what you think already.

[Saffire]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdwr-xNJIU]State of the Union 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

[Black Dog]

*crickets*

 

Obama 2012 :D

[The Final Track]

Ryan scares me, and what I liked about Romney he seems to have changed his stance on :thinking: Not that I ever wanted anyone else than Obama.

[Jack Bauer]

I think Ryan will definately have the intellectual edge over Joe in the debates.

[Black Rose]

What date is the main vote?

[Tash]

6 November

[Matter-Eater Lad]

He expanded our drone war in Pakistan. His strategy is to attack wedding and then drone attack the rescuers afterwards. We're literally bombing the people that come to dig through the rubble after a wedding was hit with a hellfire missile. He assassinated two US citizens in Yemen, one of which was 16 years old. No trial, just a missile to kill them. But they're "terrorist" so the justice process doesn't matter. He's actively trying to make the part of the National Defense Authorization act which makes it legal to arrest and detain US citizens without trial or charges legal. Supports warrantless wiretaps and other horrible attacks on freedom. Is actively building up our military efforts against Iran, and got us into another war(Libya).

 

He bailed out Wall st. and protected them against prosecution. He surrounded himself with the most corrupt from the financial sector...guess who is contributing a lot to his campaign(It really does pay to buy politicians when you break the law and screw up the economy, with help from the government, and get away with it.)

 

So no ,there is no real reason why he should be reelected nor should Romney be elected. Obama-Romney=more war, more government attacks on freedom, more corruption, more support of the corrupt in the financial world.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I really don't see why Obama's supporters still like him? He broke most his campaign promises. The health care he passed was written by the lobbyist for the insurance industry. But hey, they're going to write a law the benefits the general public, right! They would never put forward ideas that are just designed for their profits...and Obama looking for campaign contributions would never help them out..he was unaware they basically wrote the bill...right?

 

A friend of Obama and his Whitehouse lost millions of their client's dollars in a scam and won't be held accountable. And to top it off, it looks like he'll open another hedge fund and probably scam some more money. But it's okay, because he's buddies with Obama and laws are useless when you have a president as a friend who doesn't do anything about your corruption.

 

Obama's=wall st's whore

 

http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/11/10/Opinions/25911.html

[busybeeburns]

He broke most his campaign promises.

I thought that was a prerequisite of taking the job on....

[Matter-Eater Lad]

I thought that was a prerequisite of taking the job on....

 

But he promised to bring "change" that was his whole message for running. He failed more than other candidates at keeping their promises. He ran specifically on that issue, unlike the others who just go around saying whatever people want to hear and few actually pay attention.

[busybeeburns]

I hope he doesn't apologise, otherwise he'll end up on the iTunes charts

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDjRZ30SNo]The Nick Clegg Apology Song: I'm Sorry (The Autotune Remix) - YouTube[/ame]