BS: Popular Views: the Obama Administration

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 02:12 PM

We could have done without Paul Volker!

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 02:06 PM

Capital gains add to revenue for the individual or corporation. The rationale for treating it as special-class income seems obscure, especially when considering how much less effort is often involved in acquiring it. The difference, of course, is the taking of risk, in theory. But it is arguable that it should be treated in the same manner as oridnary income from any source.

As for the difference between Obama's administration and the last eight years, why not suspend judgement for the next 160 days?




A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 12:02 PM

Right, Amos, an increase in Capital gains taxes should encourage those same folks to continue making those investments do you think?

So far, there doesn't seem to be much change attached to the Obama agenda.

DougR

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 09:49 AM

Actually there are some taxes he may raise. Capital gains taxes, levied on profits made from investment in other people's work, might go up--they are presently lower than the income taxes paid by those who do the work. High-income (>250,000/yr) income taxes may also go up.

A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 06:59 AM

I was as surprised that Gates agreed to do it, as I was that Obama asked. Obviously they both think there needs to be some continuity in that cabinet post.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 03:47 AM

I dunno, DougR. Seems to me the SECDEF takes orders from the Prez, no? I don't think Gates has been part of the problem to any great degree.   

A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 26 Nov 08 - 12:28 AM

So, how do you "catters" react to Obama asking Secretary Gates (Secretary of Defense) to stay on board for another year or so?

DougR

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 08 - 01:21 PM

IT sounds like the original; typically filtering blind anger through an acid tongue. How flattering he remembered me.

A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Nov 08 - 05:57 AM

Hi Martin.....If it is Martin....There's turnin' out to be more wriggling on this thread than there was on the "Anti-abortion priest" thread..... and that's sure sayin' sumphin'.....Ake

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 06:04 PM

A politician following through on a campaign promise is so rare, I can't recall the last time I've seen it materialize.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 04:22 PM

"bunch of Jesse Jackson/ Rev. Wright appointments."

1) Huge difference between just those two.

2) Obama said he would strive to have a post-racial, post-partisan administration.

I suppose the shock is in finding out that he appears to be a politician who intends to follow through on a campaign approach.

It just proves, yet again, that he is a very smart guy.   With the votes of Lieberman, who is now indebted to Obama for saving him from the wolves of the Left, and the votes of a few moderate Republicans, (e.g. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins), he will have enough votes--on some issues, not all--to beat a planned filibuster. It's not the supposed 60 Senate votes for a filibuster-proof majority--which never would have been enough anyway, with some conservative Democrats in that 60--but enough for an issue by issue possibility of beating a filibuster. Key will be just how conservative those conservative Democrats (e.g. Tester) will be.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 01:48 PM

I suspect he will choose people competent for the work, but more important is that he will steer that work with the brand of considered, measured, balanced optimism and rational progress that define his candidacy.

I have a lot of hope for his Administration, but I am also aware that they are not inheriting a whole country from their predecessors, but a broken and gasping one, despite its many great strengths. THis is not going to be an easy job. I hope to see a lot of reach being made to fire up those who supported him in waves of enthusiasm during the campaign.

A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 01:38 PM

I do hope Obama finds an appropriate position for Colin Powell. I suppose Ambassador to the United Nations is still available.

I also wonder who he's gonna pick for Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Transportation.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 01:11 PM

:)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 12:37 PM

You're right about Bush, Ebbie. Maybe I just got acclimatized to that mode of thinking. I was expecting a bunch of Jesse Jackson/Rev. Wright type of appointments.
             I'm very pleasantly surprised, and encouraged.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 11:17 AM

Lor' bless the Rig- it appears that he is able to see past his prejudices. Unlike some others- I can't imagine how anyone can complain so bitterly about the conditions that we have around us today - and blame it on Obama.

I would like these same 'gentlemen' to go on record to say with a straight face:

#1: We are in great shape.
#2: Therefore, if anything goes wrong, it will be because the Obama Administration screwed it up.

Let me say, for the record, that in my opinion most of our current problems stem from the shortsighted, benighted efforts of President George W. Bush, who, with like mind, surrounded himself with staff and cabinet who wanted a chance to put their own 'aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic' notions in action; they had almost literally no idea of what would happen next.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Arkie
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 11:12 AM

Change obviously means different things to different folks. Obama's agenda is different than what we have seen. The past administration took office with the idea they would force their agenda on the rest of the country and that agenda was to invade Iraq, relax environmental laws, remove controls over business, and open the American treasury to the wealthy elite and big business. Obama's agenda, as far as we have seen, is to clean up the economic mess, provide some health care relief for private citzens and business, to restore the rest of the world's eroding respect of this country, and to restore hope in this country in its own future. To do this he has appointed advisers, not on the basis of blind partisanship and agreement, but who represent a diverse cross section of ideology and also have experience in their respective areas.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 10:30 AM

Check Rig's last post. The "End Times" must indeed be here.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 09:50 AM

I was amazed to see Obama pick Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security. I thought it was a brilliant choice, and it went a long way to restore my faith in Obama. I think all of his cabinet picks have been very, very good.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 07:23 AM

Lugar or Hagel. Both have recognized what a disastrous idea the Iraq war was--and both want to end it soon--without insisting on the chimera of "victory".

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 07:21 AM

As Amos, Bobert and I, among others, have been saying, it's just slightly premature to condemn the Obama admininistration as being "no change" before he even takes office.

Actually I think Obama should have picked Lugar as Secretary of State. Now that would have been real change--really reaching across the aisle--and splitting the Republicans even more than they are now. But something tells me that that change would have been not what the complainers here are looking for.

It's like I said on another thread. Some folks on Mudcat are not happy unless they can whine about something.   Maybe it's essential so they can sleep.

But the rest of us, who actually are pretty happy with the way things turned out politically, can sleep just fine.

And I suspect we have lower blood pressure than the whiners too.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 07:02 AM

Well, like Amos said... The guy ain't even in office and folks are allready tryin' to drum him out...

I will say this, however... With the mess the current crooks are leaving there's gonna be one heck of alot of cleaning up before thinking about throwing another party... That is reality...

But to place blame where blame is due it isn't just the current crop but every administration going back to the beginning of this mess which mean Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and now Bush II when the fox was placed in charge of guarding the hen house...

So I predict that it will take a good portion of Obama's first term just to create some stability in the markets and find that right amount of regulation that doesn't smoother business yet doesn't let it run wide open... On a truck that is called a "governor"... What a novel concept...

As fir the criticism that Obama is surrounding himself with veterans, I don't think that is fair... I mean, lets get real... Would he surround himself with mere idealogues like Bush II has done??? You want folks who at least understand how these departments work/don't work... Then you change the mission incrimentally until they reflect yer ideals... There is no other practical way of governing...

B~

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: akenaton
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 05:42 AM

Change?....Oh i'm sorry, I have to be "Bi-partisan" now, with all my ex- Pub advisers and "Hillary the Hawk" running State. Oh i'm so sorry voters my hands are tied"...:0(

Alice, Amos,Don et al......Did you really think that any kind of meaningful change could be be achieved without you yourselves getting your hands dirty?

This is fuckin' politics and you have just been screwed, just as we were screwed by Mr Blair.
You voted for Disneyland and in all probability you will be treated to the Hammer house of Horrors.

As US finances continue to deteriorate and the lives of millions of ordinary folk with them, you have passed up the chance to break with the failed systems of the past,

Peter T seems a bit of a favourite here, and I hope he doesn't mind if I quote him. "This guy Obama sure rolls quick".....Ake

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 04:20 AM

YAp yap yap. You guys are really insightful--accusing Barack Obamaof not changing things when he isn't in office yet, just because you don't like the staff. Get real here. You have no idea what change is going to occur.

Let me add that he emphasized change from the last eight years of disasters. Some of the CLinton era folks were prety competent, for one thing, and will be even more so under a more disciplined President.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Nov 08 - 03:20 AM

Change?????? or MORE OF THE SAME???? Looks to me he was more into just getting elected, than what he could really do if he was...so he got the same old hacks that we had before!..you know, the Bush/Clinton bozos that messed up everything before!..but good luck anyway....and say your prayers, folks...oh, I forgot, God is 'politically incorrect'....

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: CarolC
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 10:39 PM

Obama's got a couple of choices with regard to Hillary, both of which have the potential to create problems. He can leave her where she is, where she can be much more independent of Obama's agenda, and where she could be even more of an impediment to his ability to accomplish what he wants to get done, or he could give her a job that she would probably be pretty good at, and in which she would be expected to toe the line for the administration.

I don't know which of those two choices would be worse for him, and I don't envy his having to decide. But it looks like he thinks having her as his Secretary of State would be better for helping him do what he wants to do, and in this particular case, I don't think I would try to second guess his decision.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 10:04 PM

Yes, Doug, it was about "change". Well, you know as well as I do that politicians say all kinds of stuff during an election for but one purpose: to win it. McCain was also promising change, remember? He and Palin were both saying that they were "mavericks" and were going to initiate change and be very different from George Bush...only the public was not so well convinced of that. ;-)

Obama will be a change...to some extent...and in ways we probably haven't forseen yet. He'll have to figure it out as he goes along. Might as well wait and see what it is before complaining about it too much, I'd say.

Elections are 95% hoopla, spin, sensation, and BS, Doug. You know that. I know that. If anyone doesn't know it then they probably still believe in Santa Claus.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 09:26 PM

Bobert:The 700 Billion Dollar bailout is a stupid thing to do.

L.H.: But Obama's whole campaign was built on "change." Not the same old, same old.

JTS: If you REALLY believe Obama is not going to raise taxes, I know some oceanfront property here in Arizona for sale and can get you a very good price.

DougR

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 08:23 PM

Receive mediabistro.com's Daily FishbowlDC Feed via email

Friday, Nov 21
Woodward Knocks Clinton SoS Choice

Now that it's considered a foregone conclusion that Sen. Hillary Clinton will be the next secretary of State, the chattering class is weighing in, including legendary reporter Bob Woodward. FishbowlDC has obtained an advanced transcript of this weekend's "The Chris Matthews Show", in which the famed Washington Post reporter had this to say about Clinton's nomination as SoS:


Being president is about control, and tell me who ever controlled Bill or Hillary Clinton. They can't control each other. ... I think it's because Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker and others have convinced Obama, 'You're going to have to focus like a laser on the economy. That's issue Number One. And give Hillary and Bill the world.' ... I think people are fantasizing or smoking something if they think Joe Biden's going to call Hillary Clinton up and say, 'This is what we want you to do.'

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Jack The Sailor
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 08:00 PM

Obama is not going to raise any taxes at all. He is simply going to allow Bush's little experiment in reverse socialism come to an end and let the tax cuts for those who never needed them expire. The tax system will become like it was under Reagan until such time as The Democratic Congress can give fools like Joe the Plumber and Sawzaw tax breaks they were too shortsighted to ask for on their own. Hell, even dour Doug might pay a few pennies less.

The economy needs economic stimulus. There needs to be money in the hands of those who will spend it. Obama understands that. So called conservatives unfortunately haven't realized that the religious mantras that they think of as economics are as bankrupt as the "Masters of the Universe" that Bush's ignorance allowed to put us in this mess.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:45 PM

"Orszag" - touch wood, that sounds like an Orc name to me...

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:19 PM

It would be a really big surprise to me if it didn't turn out that way, Doug, for two reasons:

1. That's what usually happens, regardless who wins the election.
2. Obama is probably wise to do it that way, rather than bringing in some inexperienced new faces.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 06:17 PM

No new programs, Dougie???

How so you feel about the $700B bailout??? That one is one yer guy's watch...

B!~)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 05:50 PM

Amos: They are not. Looks like the same old Washington insiders to me.

DougR

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 05:32 PM

DougR;

Revisit your thinking if the differences aren't very, very obvious.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: DougR
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 05:27 PM

Sawzaw:"I would like to hear from DougR, Sawz, and BB what they think an Obama administration should do as a first set of priorities for the net good of the nation." Well, I don't know about Sawz and BB, but I believe Obama should refrain from raising taxes of any sort on anybody or anything, and put a freeze on establishing any NEW government programs until our economy has recovered. That should be the number 1 priority.

Amos: "this truly will be an administration that looks like America."
It looks like a third Clinton administration to me.

DougR

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Amos
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 08:41 AM

This truly will be an administration that looks like America, or at least that slice of America that got double 800s on their SATs. Even more than past administrations, this will be a valedictocracy — rule by those who graduate first in their high school classes. If a foreign enemy attacks the United States during the Harvard-Yale game any time over the next four years, we're screwed.

Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life — that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. So many of them send their kids to Georgetown Day School, the posh leftish private school in D.C. that they'll be able to hold White House staff meetings in the carpool line.

And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.

The fact that they can already leak one big appointee per day is testimony to an awful lot of expert staff work. Unlike past Democratic administrations, they are not just handing out jobs to the hacks approved by the favored interest groups. They're thinking holistically — there's a nice balance of policy wonks, governors and legislators. They're also thinking strategically. As Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute notes, it was smart to name Tom Daschle both the head of Health and Human Services and the health czar. Splitting those duties up, as Bill Clinton did, leads to all sorts of conflicts.

Most of all, they are picking Washington insiders. Or to be more precise, they are picking the best of the Washington insiders.

Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that you need inexperienced "fresh faces" to change things. After all, it was L.B.J. who passed the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, because he is so young, Obama is not bringing along an insular coterie of lifelong aides who depend upon him for their well-being.

As a result, the team he has announced so far is more impressive than any other in recent memory. One may not agree with them on everything or even most things, but a few things are indisputably true.

First, these are open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence. Orszag, who will probably be budget director, is trusted by Republicans and Democrats for his honest presentation of the facts.

Second, they are admired professionals. Conservative legal experts have a high regard for the probable attorney general, Eric Holder, despite the business over the Marc Rich pardon.

Third, they are not excessively partisan. Obama signaled that he means to live up to his postpartisan rhetoric by letting Joe Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship.

Fourth, they are not ideological. The economic advisers, Furman and Goolsbee, are moderate and thoughtful Democrats. Hillary Clinton at State is problematic, mostly because nobody has a role for her husband. But, as she has demonstrated in the Senate, her foreign-policy views are hardheaded and pragmatic. (It would be great to see her set of interests complemented by Samantha Power's set of interests at the U.N.)

Finally, there are many people on this team with practical creativity. Any think tanker can come up with broad doctrines, but it is rare to find people who can give the president a list of concrete steps he can do day by day to advance American interests. Dennis Ross, who advised Obama during the campaign, is the best I've ever seen at this, but Rahm Emanuel also has this capacity, as does Craig and legislative liaison Phil Schiliro.

Believe me, I'm trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the coastal haut-bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He's off to a start that nearly justifies the hype.
(NYT)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,Sawzaw
Date: 21 Nov 08 - 08:35 AM

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 03 Nov 08 - 07:50 PM

Well, I certainly agree.

I would like to hear from DougR, Sawz, and BB what they think an Obama administration should do as a first set of priorities for the net good of the nation.

A

Out law labor unions.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 08 - 02:18 PM

Barack Obama is showing a level of political genius that I had not expected. His outreach to Hillary Clinton as his possible secretary of state is a stunning move that will redound to his benefit -- even if she turns him down. By moving toward her with the highest offer he can make, the president-elect has recreated the Dream Team. He has drawn Hillary, the second most important Democrat in the country, into his intimate power circle. Despite a few anti-Hillary voices in the party, he has re-cemented the Democratic Party's internal glue.

Even if Clinton stays in the US Senate -- which might be a lot more useful to Obama than having her as secretary of state -- she could become the new president's chief partner in reshaping the country. She may not be president, and she might not become secretary of state. But, thanks to Obama, she has been anointed co-leader of the Democratic renaissance, the coming Obama resurrection.

Clinton has to love it. This where she always wanted to be. She is a combination of high idealism and raw political realism. Her ideals are undiminished, but her realistic influence was eroded in her primary losses to Obama. Now Barack has given her realism back. He has enhanced her effectiveness in the political arena. (Der SPiegel)

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 20 Nov 08 - 08:48 AM

WHat a lot of hot air!! Never heard a cardinal whistle so loud since Stan Msuial struck out last in the ninth.


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 20 Nov 08 - 02:57 AM

Cardinal Stafford criticizes Obama as 'aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic'

Washington DC, Nov 17, 2008 / 02:27 pm (CNA).- Cardinal James Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See, delivered a lecture on Thursday saying that the future under President-elect Obama will echo Jesus' agony in Gethsemane. Criticizing Obama as "aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic," he went on to speak about a decline in respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the values of marriage and human dignity.

Delivered at the Catholic University of America, the cardinal's lecture was titled "Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul," the student university paper The Tower reports. Hosted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, his words focused upon Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, whose fortieth anniversary is marked this year.

Commenting on the results of the recent presidential election, Cardinal Stafford said on Election Day "America suffered a cultural earthquake." The cardinal argued that President-elect Obama had campaigned on an "extremist anti-life platform" and predicted that the near future would be a time of trial.

"If 1968 was the year of America's 'suicide attempt,' 2008 is the year of America's exhaustion," he said, contrasting the year of Humane Vitae's promulgation with this election year.

"For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden," Cardinal Stafford told his audience. Catholics who weep the "hot, angry tears of betrayal" should try to identify with Jesus, who during his agony in the garden was "sick because of love."

The cardinal attributed America's decline to the Supreme Court's decisions such as the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which imposed permissive abortion laws nationwide.

"Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic," Cardinal Stafford commented, according to The Tower.

His theological remarks centered upon man's relationship with God and man's place in society.

"Man is a sacred element of secular life," he said, arguing that therefore "man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person's life cannot ultimately be controlled by government."

Cardinal Stafford also touched on the state of the family, saying that the truest reflection of the relationship between the believer and God is the relationship between husband and wife, and that contraceptive use does not fit within that relationship.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 08:54 PM

I notice she did not address what he actually said--that lobbyists would no longer set the agenda in his Administration. I notice she did not mention the fact the the Obama's rule-set for anyone who was a lobbyist prohibits them from having any direct connection with any field in which they lobbied. Seems to me that's a mess of data to leave out if you are trying to be "without Bias". "Maybe struggling to keep..." is a pretty broad and un-detailed and speculative assertion for someone dedicated to cutting through BS, wouldn't you think?


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Nov 08 - 11:53 AM

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/17/campbell.brown.lobbyists/index.html

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 06:52 PM

I would like to hear from DougR, Sawz, and BB...

Jaysus, be careful what you wish for!

Let sleeping imbeciles lie, will ya?

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 05:57 PM

Bush had no standards at all & wasn't held to anything that would be considered a standard, fact is he lowered the bar across the board.

On the other hand it appears that Obama has rised the bar & therefore has rised the standards himself, something that hasn't been seen for quite some time.

Barry

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 03:07 PM

Seeing as how we as a nation have not held Bush to any standards whatever, I would hope that we as a nation would hold Obama to higher standards than we held Bush. And I trust that we will.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 02:46 PM

Don T-

Trust, but VERIFY.


Where is the problem in stating that one should hold Barack Obama to the same critical level of observation that one has held George Bush in?

Are we supposed to accept behaviour from Obama that we would not accept from Bush?



I have heard the speeches- as I heard the ones by Bush in 2000.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 11:51 AM

HEar, hear, Don!!! Your post captures the best of our hopes and intentions for the future of the country, if we can get there!!!


A

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Nov 08 - 11:43 AM

""BB
What you just heard was the world breathing a huge sigh of relief, they are dancing in the streets of Everywhere.""

AMEN TO THAT!!


I know it's not what you asked Amos, and I freely apologise for the drift, but where better to express an outsiders viewpoint?

Barack Obama is the first politician I have seen in decades, in whom I would put my trust. Not just the first US politico, THE FIRST!


My impression of the man is that his thinking revolves around putting the best interests of the American people (ALL of them) ahead of any political agenda or corporate loyalty.

IMHO the United States is fortunate indeed, and I just wish WE had one like him.

The only thing that could detract from his achieving success, would be the obstructive, blinkered and biased attitude so ably displayed by brainwashed republican fanatics who want the WHOLE cake for themselves. I won't give names, as we, and they, know who they are.

As I have said elsewhere, America was built on the pioneers' good neighbour philosophy, which drove the growth of the so called "Wild West". It makes me sad to think that the Republican Movement has forgotten this, and established a "ME FIRST, LAST, AND ALL THE TIME" philosophy in its place.

GO OBAMA!! And make AMERICA what it once was......GREAT.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Popular Views: the Obama Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 08 - 12:04 PM

High Hopes
By ANDREW KOHUT
Andrew Kohut is the president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. (NYT)

Barack Obama won only 53 percent of the vote on Election Day, but he is getting a landslide greeting from the American public. Indeed, recent polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find the public exuberant about Mr. Obama and optimistic that he will solve the nation's problems.

A Pew post-election poll taken last weekend finds the voters giving Mr. Obama better grades for his conduct during the campaign than any presidential candidate since 1988. Seventy-five percent of the sample gave Mr. Obama a grade of A or B grade for his performance, while 24 percent gave him a C, D or F.


Source: Pew Research Center
The Gallup Poll also showed Mr. Obama getting a higher post-election favorable rating (68 percent) than either George W. Bush in 2000 (56 percent) or Bill Clinton in 1992 (60 percent).

Looking ahead, Pew found 67 percent of its national sample of voters saying they thought that Mr. Obama would have a successful first term, as many as 39 percent of those voters supported John McCain. The Gallup Poll asked a broader question about the state of the country four years from now, but found a similar result: 65 percent said the country will be better off. In comparison, only 50 percent thought the country would be better off following George W. Bush's victory in 2000, and about the same number (51 percent) thought the country would be better off following Bill Clinton's success in 1992.

When Gallup asked about specific problems confronting the new administration, it found majorities saying they expected the new administration to succeed in dealing with 13 of 16 problem areas they tested. Notably large numbers expected that Mr. Obama will increase respect for the United States abroad; improve education, the environment and conditions for minorities and the poor; create a strong economic recovery; and succeed in getting troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in a way that is "not harmful" to the United States.

The polls also showed the public anticipating a better political environment as well. The Pew survey showed somewhat more voters thinking relations between Republicans and Democrats in Washington would improve under Mr. Obama compared with a survey following the 2006 mid-term election (37 percent versus 29 percent). And Gallup found as many as 80 percent of its respondents thinking that Mr. Obama will make a sincere effort to work with Republicans to find solutions.