I think he's the most level headed president in terms of foreign policy in quite some time. I believe he has strong personal humanitarian values, but the nature of the office of the presidency is what it is.

and the other side in competence/sanity level is stunning.

And think about this, the GOP hates his ever living soul and have done everything to block him, he has however pushed through affordable healthcare.

He has shined a brilliant light on LGBT rights and they are now moving forward rapidly! He stands for Women and their equality, sadly with the GOP hate we are still having to fight tooth and nail to gain an inch.

This and so much more...to tired tonight to list them all.

and kids. And his obvious affection for them.

He does not overreact, a clear sign of emotional intelligence.

I like him because he knows they hate him and never gives them the satisfaction of a reaction.

I like him because he's unflappable.

I'd like him a lot better if he had pushed for a universal health care program, prosecuted a few wall street crooks and had dick cheney arrested and charged with war crimes.

He does not have the need to leave a legacy of war that so many other presidents (R's) believe makes them appear strong. Obama uses his intelligence.

--happens somewhere else in the world.

He's a politician, and like all politicians, he's imperfect. I admit I initially supported HRC in 2008, but I have no regrets about supporting Obama in the 2008 & 2012 GEs.

when he has every reason to get angry. I don't know where that inner tranquility comes from.

And you are so fucking wrong! He never tried to rush us to war.

I mean, how lucky can you get?

Call it dumb luck that the people called loud and clear for peace, but they did and he heard us above the warmongers.

He is a thinking man and that's why i campaigned and voted for him.

Yeah, right.

Of all the strawmen a certain contingent erect around here - and they have been frequent and many - the "Obama wanted to rush into Syria" strawman stands as a Colossus among the rest. It is a strawman so huge, so towering, so gargantuan in its height and breadth, one cannot even grasp the volume of bullshit-laden hay that had to shoved up its posterior to attempt to get it upright.

Of course, by now we are all intimately familiar with the strawman-building pattern: Obama makes it clear he will do A. The strawman engineers insist he actually wants to do B. When Obama finally does do A, the strawmanistas insist that the only reason he didn't go with B is because THEY convinced him to do exactly what he was going to do all along.

There is nothing - nothing - that would lead any reasonable person with an iota of common sense to believe that Obama was in a rush to war, in Syria or elsewhere. He is ending/has ended the two wars he inherited. In every situation that has been a possible threat to peace, Obama's first choice is diplomacy, and a measured and reasoned call for cooler heads to prevail.

Even for those who think Obama's every move is calculated on the basis of his "legacy" recognize that after achieving the feat of reforming the US healthcare system - an accomplishment others have tried and failed at - the last thing on earth the man would want to do is UNDO his legacy of saving untold lives by getting the country involved in action that would have maimed, orphaned and killed innocent people - occurrences which, thanks to our friends in the "librul media" would have been televised in full, gory, blood-drenched detail 24/7, complete with soundtrack, dazzling special effects, and $10-off Dominoes pizza coupons for the first ten callers who can correctly identify the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president who got us into this shitstorm in the first place.

You can believe that Obama is the peace-seeking president he has invariably shown himself to be - a theory which, BTW, has a LOT of evidence to support it - or you can believe that Obama is merely an arrogant showman looking to secure his place in the history books as a man of the people - and no matter which side you come down on, the idea that Obama was in a rush to engage militarily in Syria MAKES. NO. SENSE. WHAT. SO. EVER.

Now, if it makes you feel empowered to think that a president hell bent on rushing into Syria was stopped in his tracks by people posting on DU or signing petitions - whatever - you go right ahead. But don't try to sell that BS to people who actually have a brain.

Alan Grayson, thinks like I do

Obama said there was that red line, and that Syria crossed it and he was preparing to launch attacks. He, and Kerry, both said so. Then came a colossal uprising by the people, and no more was mentioned about that red line. And now the chemicals have been safely removed.

Reading your words here looks like a denial of politics and people power.

Well, Alan Grayson knows a bit more about politics than any of us ever will and he said, right here on DU, that our voices were heard and our voices changed the course.

I mean, c'mon, are you saying Obama does not listen to the peace loving people? That Obama has it all figured out and no matter what we say, he just ignores it?

Alan Grayson would agree with this: We have power.

... because people with even a modicum of sense knew that Obama was not about to do something that would "destroy his legacy" (those being the "he's only in it for his place in history" crowd) or would turn the country against him as he sought to make the same idiotic mistakes that the previous administration had made in Iraq.

I'll say it again - your theory makes NO SENSE, no matter how one views Obama, or his motives.

As for your constant conjuring up of Alan Grayson as some kind of be-all-and-end-all hero, you can save that shit for someone who's interested - which is definitely not me. I always think of him as Alan "Bluelink" Grayson - because he can't commit anything to text without including a dozen blue links that lead back to his donation website. If he had anything of substance to say, he wouldn't feel the need to use his every statement as a means to collect money for his own coffers.

No, Obama has no need to listen to "peace-loving people" - because he is one of them and, as such, he knows them better than anyone. They are, by and large, the people who worked their asses off to see him elected - twice. And if you don't think he's smart enough to KNOW that, you obviously don't "think" at all.

Getting personally abusive usually shows up in weak arguments.

Obama told us to hold his feet to the fire. That he needed our help to succeed.

Now it seems you are saying that was all just bullshit?

Alan does ask for donations from us. You'd rather he ask bankers and corporations for funds to fight the good fight?

... and the fact that you raise that as a defense demonstrates just how weak your argument is.

"Obama told us to hold his feet to the fire." How does that well-worn phrase even figure-in here? If he didn't intend to engage in Syria, no FEET TO THE FIRE would be necessary, would it?

So go ahead, explain to all of us how Obama was chomping-at-the-bit to engage in Syria, and how taking such a position would make any sense whatsoever. Explain to us how it wouldn't have UNDONE everything the man has stood for, and everything he still stands for - thereby losing the very base that elected him, and still support him. Explain what he sought to gain by nightly showings on the "librul" news networks of footage of Syrian civilians dying, along with US troops.

Explain how Obama would have thought that was a great idea, and how antagonizing the very people who support him would have been perceived as an accomplishment in the here-and-now, as well as for the history books? Above all, explain why Obama would turn his back on every principle he'd campaigned on, and was elected TWICE on.

Please proceed, Robert Earl. Proceed to tell us all exactly what brilliant political strategy Obama was embarking upon when he - as you allege - was trying to get the country into exactly the same quagmire that his predecessors are still vilified for.

Really - I await a full explanation of how your "theory" works.

Let me make it easy for you: "Obama was hell-bent on US military action in Syria because ____"

You just have to fill in the blank.

Obama was hell bent on military action in Syria because they were using chemical weapons. Sec of Sate Clinton was urging him on and so was Kerry, to take action. He did. But it was peaceful action. Just like we demanded.

Obama did: Surge in Afghanistan, try to get Iraq to allow troops to stay there, and droned a whole lot of people until the public outcry became so loud he publicly stated it would slow way down.

My theory is: People Power.

I guess you have a distaste for People Power? You seem in denial of it. I have witnessed it work many times. Not with the unelected bush type, but have seen Obama respond well. Except for that time his chief of staff called the 'Professional Left' a bunch of.. what was it? Fucktards? Any way that CoS is gone now.

Oh, and he hasn't listened to us about the banksters, so you got me there. Or about drilling for oil. But he may have heard us on Keystone... we'll see, they have put it off.

But if you want to go on believing that Obama is deaf to what the people say... who am I to convince you otherwise? Have a nice day.

He takes credit for stopping a war that was never going to happen, and he wants you to "celebrate" this victory by donating to his campaign coffers - and asks you to do so eight different times in the same self-serving diatribe!

I got one of the two of my only hides here for asking why he only came here to do a fundraiser.

I asked politely, yet I got a hide.

We must bow to his greatness...





What other politician fundraisers here?

LOL~ I will probably get another hide.

... I may as well go all in.

Grayson is, IMHO, a self-serving, self-aggrandizing politician who never passes up an opportunity to ask people to cough-up for his coffers.

Anyone who cannot post a single statement on a website without including six, seven, eight links to his own donation page is more about the money than he is about what he has to say.

Some of "his posts" on DU have been nonsensical word salads that say absolutely nothing of substance - but never fail to include the requisite half dozen or more links to a site where you can Celebrate with him! Take pride in being a fellow progressive with him! Enjoy his accomplishments! by donating to his campaign.

There was a time when I would never have posted such negative opinions about a Democrat on DU - but if calling Obama a "piece of shit used car salesman" is now allowed, I guess the gloves are off.

DU has sunk to new lows when a Democratic President on Democratic Underground is called a POS...A "Piece of Shit Used Car Salesman" and is allowed to stand here.Not only did a jury allow it, the admins did too. Why is that?

So yes the gloves should be off, yet we are called on the carpet daily for what we say. LOL...I was once alerted on for saying to someone that..."He haz a sad". I mean, hello, really?

As for Grayson. I agree. I use to like what he had to say. I even read what he posted here, Yet every link that I thought would take me somewhere always went to fundraising.



Damn! I love ya Nance!

Another rant soon please...it would be so appreciated. You are my Shero!

... answering the simple and direct question posed - ""Obama was hell-bent on US military action in Syria because ____", is beyond your ability to answer.

Just as I thought.

The rest of your "let's talk about something else" diatribe is ample demonstration that you can't answer that simple question.

"My theory is People Power". Apparently your "theory" is simply a bumper-sticker cliche in lieu of anything of substance.

"But if you want to go on believing that Obama is deaf to what the people say .."

If that's what you think I am saying, perhaps it just points to your inability to comprehend simple English, along with your inability to answer a simple question.

So I will pose the question again - just to give you another chance at making a fool of yourself:
"Obama was hell-bent on US military action in Syria because ____".

I look forward to your next non-answer.

Obama was doing what was presented to him: Syria was using chemical weapons. The US was supplying Assad's opposition weapons and the CIA was deeply involved in aligning Al Queda with the 'future' of Syria hoping they could beat Assad. Russia tho, was playing for Assad, and they really were the ones to instigate Assad giving in to the UN and getting rid of the chemicals.

I see having a conversation with you is impossible. You keep trying different narratives and shifting.

You don't believe Grayson, or People Power, so what's the use? Have a nice day.

The congress also heard the people

And there was that vote in the UK, where the Parliament said NO.

Vattel stated the historic case. It was an accurate story. Short, but accurate. So did Grayson.

"Barack Obama was hell-bent on US military action in Syria because ____"

You also haven't explained how Obama's mind was changed by Grayson & The Petition telling him something he surely already knew about how military action in Syria would be reacted to.

Hersch lays it all out.

You seem rather perplexed. You need to read again what Vattel posted. It was an accurate report about the situation. I see you have your own ideas. Why don't you find some other report that agrees with you and post it? So far you are all on your own.

... that opinion is to be accepted as infallible, and all must abandon their own opinions in complete deference to his?

I did not know that. Thanks for the reminder that it's all about lock-stepping behind the "one true opinion" that all must adopt.

All you have is your words here and your opinion is that.. wait, what is your opinion? I forgot. Your whole conversation of your opinion has bored me. Sorry.

I can vouch for Hersch because i remember the way it played out at the time.
And The Great Alan's as well.

If you had something to back up your opinion i may become unbored?

During that entire OMG Obama is invading Syria thing, the reason they used was that he was a puppet, and the MIC controlled him.

Then POOF, no war.

And it was THEY who stopped him.

Hilarious.

He planned an attack, but intelligence became cloudy, the Joint Chiefs balked at his plan, the public and Congress resisted, and then, ironically, asshole Putin saved the day with an offer to broker a deal with Assad.

Hersch: In the aftermath of the 21 August attack Obama ordered the Pentagon to draw up targets for bombing. Early in the process, the former intelligence official said, ‘the White House rejected 35 target sets provided by the joint chiefs of staff as being insufficiently “painful” to the Assad regime.’ . . . The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings.

Britain and France were both to play a part. On 29 August, the day Parliament voted against Cameron’s bid to join the intervention, the Guardian reported that he had already ordered six RAF Typhoon fighter jets to be deployed to Cyprus . . .

By the last days of August the president had given the Joint Chiefs a fixed deadline for the launch. ‘H hour was to begin no later than Monday morning [2 September], a massive assault to neutralise Assad,’ the former intelligence official said. So it was a surprise to many when during a speech in the White House Rose Garden on 31 August Obama said that the attack would be put on hold, and he would turn to Congress and put it to a vote. . . .

Obama’s move for congressional approval quickly became a dead end. ‘Congress was not going to let this go by,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Congress made it known that, unlike the authorisation for the Iraq war, there would be substantive hearings.’

Heh. Someone on this thread is gonna make an apology? Not likely.

Am I somehow obligated to adopt Hersch's opinion in place of my own?

Perhaps reasonable people can disagree sometimes.

For all of your posts on this thread.

I'd rather a left wing leader than a follower, but I'll take a follower over a right wing leader.

Everytime he speaks, I get tears in my eyes, and I don't agree with everything he does.

Everytime I think he's going to let us/me down, he comes thru with a better solution than I was led to believe by his detractors...

The trade agreement has me worried.....hoping it's not as bad as what I heard.

on my way to work on the car radio, "Now here's the president" and I CRINGED because I had become so used to cringing while listening to Dubya speak......when Obama started talking I literally heaved a sigh of relief as I remembered we had a new president now

I am glad to have a President that can at least talk like a sane and sober human being.

yes indeed

I'm going with my gut here, not with what might be objectively most important. The first thing that jumped to my mind when I read your question was the clip I saw of his first inauguration. He's gone through the incredible long, hard slog that any modern Presidential candidate must endure. Out of more than a dozen serious contenders in both parties, he's the one who emerged victorious. That he was the first black to do so is a momentous addition.

So, at this hugely important moment in his life, he holds up his hand to be sworn in as leader of the free world and the fucking Chief Justice of the United States blows his lines! Criminies, I knew the damn oath and I could've recited it accurately any day of my life since sometime in junior high!

Some people would have been totally pissed off, or taken it personally, or just been generally aghast. Obama -- who could not have expected this and who hadn't prepared for it -- had the immediate and automatic reaction of breaking into an ear-to-ear grin. I thought it said a lot about his sense of perspective that he could just see the humor in the situation, and not make it all about himself.

new eye glasses w/current prescription and didn't go into debt when I broke my toe a month ago.

He has a calm, comforting energy. My husband is the same, children love him. They hate ME. They know!

He‘s had no real scandals though the GOP keeping trying to create them out of nothing. While he has been leader the country and the electorate has been so transformed the GOP has no good chance of winning the Presidency. I think all the negativity is just a GOP pileon and it is only superficially so. The foundation Obama has built, despite the GOP obstruction at every turn and in every way, is very sound for democrats and good for americans and the greater world.

Can't say the same thing about McSame and have no idea what RMoney would have done...but I expect something as bad or worse than McSame.

thank god he knows how to keep his cool

I would!

"everything" "almost everything".

I guess if I have to pick something I like, it would sorta be a negative - something he is NOT doing. And something that Romney or McCain presumably would be doing - he's not trying to get the Senate to pass very many of the crap bills that the House is passing.

But since he mostly has not been able to propose anything that could pass since November 2010, there's really not that much to like. Maybe speeches, but I have not listened to very many of them.

And, uh --- he's smart.

in at least three wars. Many call for an immediate response for everything. Those kinds of responses have gotten a lot of Americans killed.

I cannot imagine anyone in the country doing a better job. I'm proud of both my votes for him.

universal need transcending bigotry and hatred. And, as a black man, he has the strength to navigate the racists in this country, far more of them being around than I ever suspected.

"Obamacare" gave me my life back. I'll always be grateful and I hope someday I have the opportunity to thank him.

I was on law review and my older two were editors on their law journals. President Obama is our president, i.e., the president for law nerds

I was born during Nixon. I used to be a legislative analyst. The lessons learned during that time have permitted me to make some pretty accurate predictions about what's going to happen in politics. I've learned more from simply observing how President Obama works than from any other President.

He has achieved more against the most stunning and un-American (or rather, entirely American) resistance than any American politician I have seen. I've noticed a change in attitude in this second term as well. Now, the President is simply here to get things done, and he's far better at doing that than Republicans are at stopping him.

Simply having intelligent control over the nation's regulatory processes is going to prove (to boring historians in a boring and non-Apocalyptic future) to be one of the most important events in America's 21st Century history. It's boring and nobody cares about it, but over the past five years the President has worked every single day to reverse the institutionally codified corruption of Shrub and his evil Republican predecessors. There will be no way to easily undo these changes, as Shrub did with Clinton's "midnight regulations."

Furthermore, President Obama's personal behavior is above reproach, and that real-life integrity extends to the behavior of his Administration. Virtually every scandal that has emerged in President Obama's time involves a Republican stay-behind within his Administration--and that includes Benghazi, and just wait until we see who's at the bottom of that one (Hint: Mitt's one of 'em.)!

President Obama is going to be held up by the good people of the United States as a model President. The United States has been truly blessed to have a President as competent and as incorruptible as he is. We'll never get that lucky twice this century, so we'd better enjoy these days.

These are the very best of times.

I'm just compiling a list -- you've put together a mini-analysis.

I do think he's fairly incredible as a politician most of the time. When he's 'on' he can campaign like no other, and his speeches are meticulous. If he'd actually been the socialist the right accuses him of being, I think he would have transformed the country in wonderful ways. He's got the brains, he's got the talent, he's got the charisma.

1) can eat pretzels
2) can ride a Segway
3) doesn't mumble or stutter
4) doesn't make up non-sense words
How stupid would you have to be to be the opposite of that?

in a million years.

and take up your position. The man can 'evolve' on an issue and/or is willing to take that part in a public debate that moves an issue forward. This is very rare in a politician and it is extremely useful.
In terms of the ceremonial and public image portions of his job, he's as good as it gets. I like the way he does the Presidency. I put much value into the word, spoken and written and Obama is a master of words, this I always respect.

US president Barack Obama has called for an "immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas. (this morning in the Guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/gaza-crisis-obama-ceasefire-fighting-goes-on)

That tops the list for me. Also happy with his Supreme Court picks and stance on civil rights/womens rights.

Seems like he would be a good friend.

To me, those are important qualities to have.

killer punch lines.

On a more serious note, he gives all due respect to ground troops, hugs to their grieving families. He concentrated his best, focused, calculated risk taking on the Bin Laden special forces operation.

He's forbearing, patient. He "evolves."

He's the man for our times.

Consider the alternative.

...well-grounded, slow to anger, genuinely likes humanity and other people,

learns from his mistakes (well, that business with trying to work with the GOP was kind of a lulu, but I figure he had to try), I do like his speeches because >gag me< Bush and Palin,

sanity and thoughtfulness, his wife and kids and his relationship with them (again: the Bush, Palin, McCain families), pushing forward for women and LGBT, pushing through the best he could get for ACA,

doesn't feel the need to weenie-wag and get us into a war to show his manhood, ordered the take-out of OBL and didn't need to commandeer a battleship to crow "Mission Accomplished,"

doesn't need to tout his personal "morality" because he's genuinely ethical and knows the difference (comes from having Unitarians in the family, no doubt),

is able to evolve on issues, witty, terrific smile, someone I would genuinely like to break bread with.

Elsewhere on DU I have thoughtfully enumerated policies, actions, and so forth, and whether I agree/disagree with them. This post pretty much just goes to innate character. I liked his character back in 2007-8; I felt I could trust him to do his best for us.

As I've said many times, I never expected a king, a god, a saint, or someone who could kiss it all better and give me a unicorn, so in that regard I have not been disappointed. He's a human being, thus fallible. But since you asked what we liked about him....