Can Liberals Criticise Obama?

[Obamanation]

Can you believe it? According to libs on this board - Obama needs to move MUCH further to the left...

OMG... I never thought I'd be grateful that Obama is so far to the right...

 

[editec]

Can you believe it? According to libs on this board - Obama needs to move MUCH further to the left...

OMG... I never thought I'd be grateful that Obama is so far to the right...

Depends on what you define as "left".

Why don't you define it for us so we can know what you're talking about?

Thanks.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

I got no problem with publically stating my criticisms of Obama. And unlike the "rights" criticism of him, I don't have to make mine up. My criticisms of this President, just like my criticisms of the last one, are based on their policies and actions in office, not on what I thought they were doing or who or what I thought they were.

My criticism of him and his Administration are as follows:

• his "kill lists". Thinking he has the authority to kill any American, anywhere, at anytime, for any reason, is just disgusting.
• refusing to investigate former Administration officials for war crimes.
• continuing the neocon foreign policy agenda.
• not fighting for the "public option" in the healthcare bill.
• supporting "indefinate detention".
• supporting "drone" warfare.
• not enough liberal legislation.
• too many compromises with the right.
• kissing too much Israeli ass
• expanding warrantless wire-tapping

Let's get one thing perfectly clear, Obama is NOT a liberal President. He's not a liberal. His policies are not on the left. He has no liberals in his Cabinet. He has too many former financial industry heavyweights in his treasury department.

Does anyone remember former WH press secretary Robert Gibbs going off on liberals just before a press conference? Saying we had to give Obama "more time" to enact the liberal policies he said he was going to do during his campaign. That we were too impatient with him and he couldn't get everything all done at once.

Truth is, he didn't do any of it and I personally took the "time" option off the table 18 months into his Presidency and formally stated I no longer support the policies of his Administration. That was over 3-1/2 years ago and I still don't.

The one thing to remember about Obama, more than anything else, is that he is a "POLITICAN!" Never forget that and you will always keep what he says and does in perspective.

And pay no intention to what the right says about him, because they make everything up about him anyway. Nothing they say about him is true. But that's true about anyone they talk about.

You are confused on what a liberal is. Liberals support government expansion, government control, anti gun agenda. obama is a prime example of the modern day liberal.

Wow, you should do some research about which administrations have grown government. Plus, Reagan supported assault weapon ban. Obama is faaaaaar from "a prime example of the modern day liberal"...

You are one fucked up bitch.

 

[Obamanation]

Can you believe it? According to libs on this board - Obama needs to move MUCH further to the left...

OMG... I never thought I'd be grateful that Obama is so far to the right...

Depends on what you define as "left".

Why don't you define it for us so we can know what you're talking about?

Thanks.

ummm, people with social, economical, and political shortcomings...

You get it now???

 

[Saigon]

It's interesting to see that the response to a thread that invites left-leaning voters to criticise Obama is a spamathon by right wing posters in an attempt to derail the thread.

Baffling.

 

[editec]

It's interesting to see that the response to a thread that invites left-leaning voters to criticise Obama is a spamathon by right wing posters in an attempt to derail the thread.

Baffling.

Since most ring wingers on this board are only interested in debating against STRAW MEN LIBERALS, it makes perfect sense.

 

[Saigon]

What?....No mention of Benghazi, where 4 Americans were murdered, on the anniversary of 9/11, due to the abject failures of the POTUS, his administration, SOS, and the State Department she led?

The idea of this is that liberals say what mistakes they think Obama has made - not the mistakes the GOP thinks he has made. It's a different issue.

I have no problem with how Benghazi was handled. It was a terrible thing to happen, but so were the attacks against US embassies in Nairobi and Jakarta during previous administrations. These things happen, unfortunately.

 

[squeeze berry]

Can you believe it? According to libs on this board - Obama needs to move MUCH further to the left...

OMG... I never thought I'd be grateful that Obama is so far to the right...

Depends on what you define as "left".

Why don't you define it for us so we can know what you're talking about?

Thanks.

IMO someone that supports social justice is "left"


Obama ^

 

[Obamanation]

What?....No mention of Benghazi, where 4 Americans were murdered, on the anniversary of 9/11, due to the abject failures of the POTUS, his administration, SOS, and the State Department she led?

The idea of this is that liberals say what mistakes they think Obama has made - not the mistakes the GOP thinks he has made. It's a different issue.

I have no problem with how Benghazi was handled. It was a terrible thing to happen, but so were the attacks against US embassies in Nairobi and Jakarta during previous administrations. These things happen, unfortunately.

I don't think most righties see the attack as the mistake... the handling of it in retrospect and the unwillingness to admit fault --- different story. I do think that shortcoming of Obama's was already outlined by a lefty!

 

[Dubya]

It's interesting to see that the response to a thread that invites left-leaning voters to criticise Obama is a spamathon by right wing posters in an attempt to derail the thread.

Baffling.

It's breakfast and you're hungry. Today's menu has two selections, oatmeal or a turd sandwich. I eat oatmeal because it's good for me, but it isn't my favorite thing I'd want to eat for breakfast. It's better than a Republican turd sandwich for every meal, though.

 

[Interpol]

If you are a liberal or Democrat, I' like to hear from you about what you do not like, or have not liked, about the Obama administration.

I'll go first -

1) Austerity. In Obama's first day in power five years ago, I thought he should have anounced austerity cuts, and big ones. He had the public support to actually go out and say "We're damn near broke" and slash a billion or so off spending. I didn't mind the Stim Pack per se, but I think spending cuts needed to go along side it.

2) Climate Change. Obama has been too passive on this. I'd like to have seen clearer statements of intent, backed by science ordinary people could understand, so that Americans could understand more of the issue.

3) Admitting Error. Maybe it's unreasonable, but with some of the scandals like 'Fast & Furious' I'd always like to see politicians admit that mistakes were made. I think people would respect it more than excuses.

4) Closing the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and the White House. Stop hiring people from lobbies, and put distance between lobbies and positions of responsibility.

5) Cut military spending. I'd like Obama to stand up to the military, and present a long term strategy of reducing spending massively, and converting the military into a force that can deal with guerillas and al Queda, and rely less on cold war thinking.

I resent the stupid notion that somehow liberals don't criticize President Obama. Liberals are forever criticizing everything.

It's the modern Republican party that lacks such self-awareness. If you don't agree with them on every moronic detail of what they stand for, than they call you a RINO and they turf you out of office, i.e. Richard Lugar.

Lemme respond to your concerns;

1) Austerity is what the Europeans did, and it gave them a double-dip recession. But that's what Republicans say we should do even though they then go onto speak out of the other side of their crooked mouths about how we should never follow Europe.

Austerity prevents the economy from growing so that more and more people can pitch into the tax revenue side of things because it cuts jobs, which leads to less spending from the public, which leads to greater insecurity in the markets.

Instead, President Obama did the right thing by enacting the Stimulus. It has given us a fragile recovery instead of a double-dip recession. You have to grow the economy first and then think about smart ways of cutting, just like what he's doing now. Your argument is just wrongheaded on this point and can't be backed up by any empirical data.

2) Fuck. It's not Obama's job to hold your hand through everything and to give you Sesame Street lessons about climate change. Furthermore, you apparently must not be aware of the fact that under Obama, oil imports are down and oil exports are up. We've actually reversed a very long trend in that regard.

And part of the reason why oil imports have gone down is that green energy has more than doubled in the last 4 years. It's still not where it should be, but we're finally moving in the right direction. His current plan is to pass some austerity measures, close tax loopholes on the rich and major corporations, and invest a little of that in furthering research and development in green technology.

3) Obama doesn't admit mistakes? Funny, I remember him calling it a mistake when he chose the words, "You didn't build that". He called it a mistake. He also said it was a mistake not to explain Obamacare and to be more transparent about it. He just figured that since he got elected on a platform of passing the Public Option, which the majority of the country wanted, that he didn't have to explain compromising that plan in order to pass the Republican version from the 90's in the hopes of getting more support from congressional Republicans. Of course they didn't support it, because no matter what he does, they hate him, even if he tries to pass their own goddamn shit.

4) Point taken. Agreed. He would have score some valuable points had he gotten some big convictions 4 years ago, but seemed too afraid that he'd rock the markets at a time of serious peril to all of us.

5) That's exactly what his plan is to do, except Republicans continue to pass one budget after another that dramatically raises the defense budget. Obama's plan is to basically level off the defense budget at where it was 10 years ago before somehow we decided to have two full-scale wars at the same goddamn time.


The one glaring thing you seem to have omitted is the indefinite detentions of people, which is still allowed to go on. He hasn't added anyone to Gitmo and has only been processing people out of there because he sincerely wants to close it, and he's stopped our global ring of torture, but he still hasn't gone all the way.

My biggest criticism though is that to this day he continues to want so much for the fucktards in the modern Republican party to work with him.

He invites them to breakfast and they pass on it.

Invites them for lunch, they say they've got better things to do.

Invites them even to state dinners, but they don't show up, which is unfuckingprecedented.

He passes on his own popular Public Option plan and opts with the free market-based solution taken directly from them and then they act as though it's evil.

They wonder about him being a foreigner. A communist. A Marxist.

They call him anti-capitalism, even though the Dow is higher than ever and Wall Street profits are at record levels once more.

They call him anti-gun even though he's the President that has allowed for concealed carries in national parks.

Offers them a $4 trillion debt reduction plan with about 60% of it being austerity, but they reject it only for Boehner to run back 18 months later and ask the President if he'll offer the same damn thing again. Fucking morons.

They say he's against drilling at home even though it has increased faster than at any other time in modern history.

He comes through on getting Bin Laden and they can't even give him that one, calling him lucky.

At his SOTU a few years ago, one of them shouts at him that he's a liar. Unprecedented.

All they do is treat this President like shit, and all he does is continue to come back and invite them to hangout so they can hash things over and pass something, but I'm supposed to sit here and criticize Obama about this detail and that detail and ignore the fact that racists, birthers, flat-earthers and other assorted know-nothings are clearly a threat to our democracy?

Obama isn't the biggest fish to fry. It's fucking traitors like Ted Cruz, who just made up bullshit about a decorated war veteran and ran with it like it's true that we should be concerned about.

It's McCarthyism we should worried about at this time and not a centrist, moderate President who continues to make more positive changes than negative ones.

 

[Saigon]

I resent the stupid notion that somehow liberals don't criticize President Obama. Liberals are forever criticizing everything.

It's the modern Republican party that lacks such self-awareness.

I am sure liberals discuss this stuff with each other - but on this board I think we are all guilty of being defensive and playing team politics.

There is another thread for conservatives to criticise the GOP, but so far no one has done do.

 

[Saigon]

As for austerity measures - they do not cause recession in themselves. If the cuts are intelligent it can have the opposite effect, by encouraging people to believe that the government is taking action. Anything which does this also encourages spending and investment.

Of course if the government lays off staff it creates unemployment, but cuts to many spending programs would not have any marked negative effect.

Many of the cuts made in Europe were well thought out and did make a difference in their own way - unfortunately any impact they had was swamped by the negative impact of job losses and bankruptices elsewhere.

 

[Dubya]

I resent the stupid notion that somehow liberals don't criticize President Obama. Liberals are forever criticizing everything.

It's the modern Republican party that lacks such self-awareness.

I am sure liberals discuss this stuff with each other - but on this board I think we are all guilty of being defensive and playing team politics.

There is another thread for conservatives to criticise the GOP, but so far no one has done do.

Don't you mean:

criticize - definition of criticize by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

instead of :

Criticise - definition of Criticise by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

?????

 

[Billo_Really]

You are confused on what a liberal is.

Liberals support government expansion, government control, anti gun agenda. obama is a prime example of the modern day liberal.

He didn't expand government. Not like his predecessor. How big of an increase does the government payroll get when you add a whole new Cabinet post (Dept of Homeland Security)? How much is TSA costing us? Those aren't Obama adds. A conservative President added those puppy's. And I'm against them. I'm also a liberal. So apparently, liberals do not support expansion.

As far as government control, most of that occured during the Bush Presidency when he pressured Congress into signing the Patriot and Military Commission's Acts. Obama has the NDAA, which is pretty bad to, but the other two nullified the Bill of Rights.

As far as guns, I could care less. I'm not into guns and couldn't give a shit about the 2nd Amendment. I don't care one way or the other about legislation or no legislation. But I do think that LaPierre guy is a fuckin' looney tune. He's fuckin' nuts. Somebody should institutionalize that prick.

 

[Saigon]

Dubya -

I usually use UK spellings. I live in the EU, and UK spellings are thus more common here.

Don't criticise me for that!!

 

[bigrebnc1775]

I resent the stupid notion that somehow liberals don't criticize President Obama. Liberals are forever criticizing everything.

It's the modern Republican party that lacks such self-awareness.

I am sure liberals discuss this stuff with each other - but on this board I think we are all guilty of being defensive and playing team politics.

There is another thread for conservatives to criticise the GOP, but so far no one has done do.

Don't you mean:

criticize - definition of criticize by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

instead of :

Criticise - definition of Criticise by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

?????

Lighten up dumb fuck Most understand what Saigon meant.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

You are confused on what a liberal is.

Liberals support government expansion, government control, anti gun agenda. obama is a prime example of the modern day liberal.

He didn't expand government. Not like his predecessor. How big of an increase does the government payroll get when you add a whole new Cabinet post (Dept of Homeland Security)? How much is TSA costing us? Those aren't Obama adds. A conservative President added those puppy's. And I'm against them. I'm also a liberal. So apparently, liberals do not support expansion.

As far as government control, most of that occured during the Bush Presidency when he pressured Congress into signing the Patriot and Military Commission's Acts. Obama has the NDAA, which is pretty bad to, but the other two nullified the Bill of Rights.

As far as guns, I could care less. I'm not into guns and couldn't give a shit about the 2nd Amendment. I don't care one way or the other about legislation or no legislation. But I do think that LaPierre guy is a fuckin' looney tune. He's fuckin' nuts. Somebody should institutionalize that prick.

obamacare is just one of the biggest expansions in government growth

 

[Billo_Really]

obamacare is just one of the biggest expansions in government growth

No it isn't. Even if it included the "public option", it wouldn't be a big expansion, because the governments already set up to handle that kind of administration because of Medicare.

I'd like to see a single-payer system and completely eliminate the "for profit" healthcare industry, but that ain't gonna happen.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

obamacare is just one of the biggest expansions in government growth

No it isn't. Even if it included the "public option", it wouldn't be a big expansion, because the governments already set up to handle that kind of administration because of Medicare.

I'd like to see a single-payer system and completely eliminate the "for profit" healthcare industry, but that ain't gonna happen.

Don't be a dumb fuck
obamacare created a new Bureaucracy