Stephanopoulos To Obama: At What Point Does Experience Become A Liability For The Presidency?

RealClearPolitics ^ | January 9, 2017 | RealClearPolitics

[i88schwartz]

STEPHANOPOULOS: But at what point does the experience become a liability? And what put this in my mind was reading Bob Gates' memoir. And he talks about being in the meetings with you and talking about the raid on Osama bin Laden, saying, "Maybe he's getting too cautious; he's been there too long." Is that a risk?

[Man from Oz]

This chump had NO experience in anything relevant. 11 days until this nightmare ends....

[WKUHilltopper]

Stupidopolis...you live up to your name.

[rbg81]

Exactly. By almost every measure, Obama has been a dismal failure. His only real achievement is that BinLaden died on his watch. Besides that, the country didn’t implode and he didn’t get us into a nuclear war. But.....11 days to go.

[Does so]

BinLaden died on his watch.

...and bin Laden's death brought us NO reprieve from Terror...!

[KC_Conspirator]

What a hard hitting question this servile fluffer asked!

[A Navy Vet]

Huh. An actual thoughtful non-giddy question by Steponallofus.
Guess now that his idol is leaving he can resort to real questions.

[Clioman]

Wait a minute. Wasn’t this Democrat-with-a-byline supposed to be moving to New Zealand? What’s the hold-up?

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

OBAMA: Case in point. So-- so that tells me that there is-- there-- there's a utility in the democracy refreshing itself on an ongoing basis. And-- and that's part of what I tried to describe to my team and supporters after the election, there was a lot of disappointment. You know, I--what I've said to them is, "Look, we-- we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job." I can document-- in fact, this past week we're-- we've put out memos from every agency showing what did we do.

Jibberish Nonsense.

[CIB-173RDABN]

But at what point does the experience become a liability?

---

By the time a politicians has work their way up the ladder to run for the office of President, they have been for the most part already been corrupted by the system.

Regardless of how honest or honorable a person starts out, they have to compromise their principles a little bit each day until they have gained enough “experience” to be
President.

Trump has gained the office without going through the process. I think this is why Trump has a better chance of doing what is good for our nation than a professional politicians could do.

[Auntie Mame]

Good grief, the man is incoherent. Here’s the transcript in full:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, THIS WEEK: But did you succeed on your own terms? Back in the campaign you talked about Ronald Reagan changing the trajectory of the country, setting on a fundamentally different path. Do you think you did that?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think I did in the sense that there’s a whole generation coming up behind us that was engaged, inspired, worked for change during the course of my presidency, saw what was possible. And that— that— that generation, it’s coming. They’re not the majority yet but they’re gonna be the majority soon. And when you look at what they believe in, when they, you look at how they value diversity, how they believe in science, how they care about the environment, how they believe in, you know, everybody getting a fair shot, how they believe in not discriminating against people for sexual orientation and you know, their belief that we have to work with other countries to create a more peaceful world and— and to alleviate poverty, that’s the majority of— of an entire generation that’s coming up behind us.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn’t come out to vote?

OBAMA: Well, you know, they came out to vote for me. And they came out to vote where that— spirit was touched. The next phase and this is part of what I’m interested in doing after I get out of the presidency is to make sure that I’m working with that next generation so that they understand you can’t just rely on inspiration. There’s a little perspiration involved in bringing about change too. That you have to be organized, that you have to vote even when it’s not exciting.

You have to be involved during midterm elections, you have to care about what happens at a school board level. You have to be involved in terms of what’s happening in your local neighborhood and what issues are there. So— so I think that there’s gonna be a lot of work to do in order to consolidate the transformations that I was interested in. But I—but the spirit’s there and— and that’s not just my imagination. I think if you look at surveys and attitudes among young people, you see it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I imagine you think the presidency’s something you get better at over time?

OBAMA: You do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But at what point does the experience become a liability? And what put this in my mind was reading Bob Gates’ memoir. And he talks about being in the meetings with you and talking about the raid on Osama bin Laden, saying, “Maybe he’s getting too cautious; he’s been there too long.” Is that a risk?

OBAMA: Well, what I’ll say is this: I believe in term limits for presidents because I think that there is no doubt I’m a better president now than I was when I start. In fact, I— I would argue that I— I am the best president I’ve ever been over the last year or— or two. My team is more effective than it’s ever been. But what is also true is that number one, this is grueling. And sustaining the energy and focus involved in doing a good job I think starts to— starts to gets tougher the longer you do it.

The second thing is, the bubble’s the bubble. And— and I think we’ve done a pretty good job staying in touch with the American people. But at a certain point you can’t help but lose some feel for what’s on the ground because you’re not on the ground.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn’t think Donald Trump could win?

OBAMA: Case in point. So— so that tells me that there is— there— there’s a utility in the democracy refreshing itself on an ongoing basis. And— and that’s part of what I tried to describe to my team and supporters after the election, there was a lot of disappointment. You know, I—what I’ve said to them is, “Look, we— we ran our leg of the race and we did a darn good job.” I can document— in fact, this past week we’re— we’ve put out memos from every agency showing what did we do. Try to be as honest as possible. There’s a little hype involved obviously. It’s spin because it’s our agencies. We— we feel some pride about it. But tried to be self-critical as well. And— and I can honestly say, George— and I don’t think there’s a lot of dispute for this. You— you can argue that we didn’t get everything done that we wanted to get done, but I can make a really strong argument, and I think prove, that by almost every measure the country’s better off now than when I started.

And so just to finish the thought, what that means then is that if we started here and we’re now here, just like I described in health care, yeah, somebody comes in, they got new ideas, maybe ideas that are completely opposite of my ideas. Maybe some of it goes, maybe some of that progress goes back. Maybe they think of some things we didn’t think of, and so in some other areas— we can learn something.

But that just gives sort of the democracy an opportunity to test ideas, for those who lost to catch their breath, regain energy, reenergize themselves and then get back in the arena, and then we’ll make some more progress in the future.

[unixfox]

Wasn’t this Democrat-with-a-byline supposed to be moving to New Zealand?

Actually it was Australia, because they have no guns and little crime.

His wife actually said that.

[jimfree]

That that’s not a question. That’s oral sex!

[lwoodham]

The point that happened was in 2008.

[Liz]

2010 midterms voters trounced Obama’s party, handing them the biggest losses in 72 years. 2012 Obama was reelected by nearly 4 million fewer votes than in 2008, making him the only president ever to win a second term with shrunken margins in both the popular and electoral vote.

Two years later Obama implored voters, “[My] policies are on the ballot — every single one of them” ......nevertheless, despite Obama's braggadocio, Democrats were clobbered again.

.....in 2016, he campaigned hard for Hillary....“I’m not on this ballot,” he told campaign rallies in a frequent refrain, “but everything we’ve done these last eight years is on the ballot.”

The voters heard him loud and clear......and once again turned him down (and threw out scores of like-minded Democrats).

==============================================

Obama had a habit of raining on Hillary's parade. Hillary's debates came off looking good and she looked good after the convention.

But her campaign fell off a cliff, after Obama gave her a push. Obama's burnishing his legacy is all he ever thinks about b/c it means big bucks for his foundations.

So his sap-happy "I'm Great" messaging forced Hillary to follow his lead and run for a third Obama term. She no longer ran on change, she ran on Obama's continued progressiveness in a country crying for change.

She lost the election in the final two weeks because of avoidable things like Obama embracing her that sent the electorate a frightening message.

The Royal Idiot's ringing endorsement of Hillary meant many people had moved over to the Trump side.

CAUTION: prolonged viewing causes violent retching.

"I flacked her on AF One and she lost four points.
This frickin' faked pose oughta be good for a point."

[Parmy]

Guess now that his idol is leaving he can resort to real questions.

He couldn't ask a real question even if it were printed out for him by someone else.

Oh, wait! He already has that done.

[Organic Panic]

Way back in 2008 I said, “Obama is dangerous because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Hillary is dangerous because she knows what she’s doing.”

[Redwood71]

“But at what point does the experience become a liability?”

So I can assume two years in government is the right amount of experience for a presidential candidate? That’s what Obama had. And Trump has played the political game in his business throughout the world for years. Grow up Steph. This is the real world, not the inside of the studio.

red

[ridesthemiles]

The overwhelming LOVE-FEST that little Georgie has with Obama- Shrillary- and the Dems in general is enough to keep Pepto Bismal in business for another century.

He certainly can spell BIAS much better than he can spell OBJECTIVITY.

Wish he would wake up to the fact that his 7 figure salary comes from BUSINESS not from WELFARE.

[hattend]

Stephanopoulos To Obama: At What Point Does Experience Become A Liability For The Presidency?

How would Obama know?