Posted on 08/26/2011 11:57:22 AM PDT by cruise_missile
“Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president?” Jonathan Alter writes in his column.
Alter tells us he’s not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and he’s not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about people’s generalized “disappointment.” (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far.
In Alter’s words, “Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.”
Consider the mission accepted.
In one sense, the answer to the Alter challenge is obvious: Obama has failed by his own standards. It’s the Obama administration, not the RNC, that said if his stimulus package was passed unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. It’s Obama who joked there weren’t as many “shovel-ready” jobs as he thought.
It’s Obama who promised to cut the deficit in half. It’s Obama who said if we passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care cost curve would go down rather than up. It’s Obama who promised us recovery and prosperity, hope and change. What we’ve gotten instead is the opposite.
What makes Alter’s challenge particularly delicious is during the Bush years he spoke out about the importance of a “reality-based” presidency (as opposed to a “faith-based” one). “They [Republicans] could end up winning in November by distorting the argument,” Alter said in 2006. “But on credibility and the facts, they’ve lost.”
With Alter’s devotion to credibility and facts in mind, let’s take an empirical, reality-based look at economic life in America during the Age of Obama:
* Under Obama’s stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.
Obama’s probably been trained in communist dialectics,
and therefore firmly believes the cost curve WILL bend down after it goes up.
As a matter of fact, its going up is proof that it will go down (in the mind of a communist).
I guess you can consider Obama a success if you abhor capitalism, or if you don’t like the US acting to protect its interests abroad.
Not much of a challenge. Like asking why the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were considered a bad football team.
Jonathan Alter gave Peter Wehner a great opportunity to make the case for why Obama has failed the country, miserably, as president. Mr. Wehner seized that opportunity and made excellent use of it by offering the long list of failures, often using Obama’s own promises and criticisms (of Bush) as proof positive that Obama has been a disaster for America. Next question, Jonathan?
Only one question needs to be asked. Are we freer?
Bookmark
Their perspective of things is to Lewis Caroll what conservatives' is to Funk & Wagnalls.
That’s a good one. Even for libtard standards.
Prove how the Oakland Raiders sucked.... And don’t get all generalized in “disappointment.” I don’t want to hear about their 1-15 record or last ranked defense. I want to know how they suck.
LOL!
It’s the economy Alter!
In 1990 we had 6 million Local State & Federal government workers; now (2010) we have 38 million.
Redistributing the wealth sure has a lot of overhead!
Well, to start, the rise of the oceans have not begun to slow and our planet has not begun to heal.
define failure
he has made more people dependent on the government and that seems like it was his goal
hence successful.
he has made foreign policy more random and chaotic and our enemies seem to be thriving that also seems to be a goal.
so if he wanted me to pray for the return of jimmy carter he has succeeded.
He has frightened business interests into destructive inaction by threatening all sorts of taxes and financial regulations. The debt mentioned above imply onerous taxation is not far off.
He has shaken confidence in the political process by forcing through congress unwanted, unneeded and unexplained legislative initiatives such as health care and Dodd-Frank regulations.
Unemployment has risen disastrously under his watch despite his guarantee that, if he spent the stimulus, it would not go above 8%
His foreign policies have undercut international respect for the US, compromised our soldiers in war theaters and, for some reason, involved us in Libya.
He has not led the US in any context with any success.
He is, at best, although this is wholly undocumented, an academic very far out of his depth.
There is more but that's enough wreckage for a dozen administrations
Why is the Zero such a poor, failed president?
Hmm, is this some sort of trick question?
Obama has made it very plain that he opposes the measures that would revive the economy in a very short time...in short, free-market incentives. Free-market incentives are the last things on Obama’s list of things to do. By failing to get out of the way, in fact by placing severe restrictions on it, Obama has hamstrung the economy. If Alter cannot understand that, he’s dumber than he looks.
thanks cruise_missile, additional:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2769258/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2769500/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2769570/posts
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