siding with Corporations he so frequently sides with the corporations. Like George Carlin said, there is a club and we ain't in it.

The problem is that the government siding with corporations is a practice that's accepted by ALL sides.

That our economy is deeply intermeshed with the power and far reaching range of the private sector.

So, are you telling me that you expected the very way that our government interacts with the corporate sector to fundamentally change, simply because a Democratic president was elected?

Really?

Where in the hell was the sustained mandate for this to happen for the past three and a half years? It was great that OWS took to the streets, but c'mon, we all know that they should've started decades ago, not just last summer.

And how many Democrats in Congress are actually waging a campaign to get the government to disassociate itself from its dependence on corporate money and power? If there are people doing this, how successful have they been at doing that?

How far do you think that Obama can actually get and how the hell do you really think he'd succeed at being hostile to corporate power and money?

I'll tell you what, if you think that he could do this all by himself, even if he want to, he wouldn't be able to get anything done at all and most of all… Probably wouldn't be in office all that long.

bring " Change I could Believe in", a democrat who would rise to the occasion like FDR did, not a corporate foil who would continue Bushes policies. I guess that it is no longer important to stand for Democratic Principals, as long as our team wins.

In that some may think that he should have thrown all the marbles in anyway, in spite of the likelihood of complete and utter failure. Sort of sacrificing himself and whatever political capital that he has on the pyres of partisanship. You know, make a big show.

I'm sorry, but how did you get the impression that he was going to govern as some kind of uber-liberal idealogue?

That's not the impression I got. I understand that he's a pragmatist who is keen on working out the art of the possible, with whatever tools that he has handy. Which, as you fully know, was never a whole lot and is even less today.

And I need to ask, are you suggesting that he's continuing all of Bushes policies? Don't you think that it would be an unrealistic expectation that he discontinue or reverse every single one of them? Bush had eight years of policies that he enacted. Some of them, would go and others would stay, when you're in the Oval Office, your point of view is going to dictate what you'll find necessary at times.

Not that I intend to defend the continuation of certain policies, I'm interested in knowing which ones you're talking about.

illusions that I might have had about his intentions. Timothy Franz Geithner, Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke all were contributors to our economic collapse.
No I didn't expect him to govern as a uber-liberal, but I did expect him to uphold democratic principals and not crony capitalism.
Do you consider FDR and Harry Truman to be uber liberals?

I didn't expect him to lead the attack on our public system of education. To push for greater intrusions into our privacy and our rights.

Really isn't the question, how has Obama governed differently in policy from busch?

he sides with the law. That's the basic job description.

You can say we have a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and that the president is selected by the people to represent the people, but the executive branch is fundamentally all about siding with the law. Maybe * wasn't bright enough to realize that, but Obama certainly is aware.

for medical purposes. I voted for him enthusiastically and I will certainly vote for him this year, but as of now I couldn't tell you what his core values are. I'm watching what he does, but I have a hard time believing anything he says. I think most of it is mere expediency. The idea that the gloves will come off after the election has no basis in anything we've seen so far.

not going after Bush and Cheney for war crimes but instead they choose to block all investigations but I digress.

So holding my nose and marking the box next to President Obama’s name is all he gets from me this go round.

Perhaps someday America will elect a leader who will actually follows the law and go after those who fragrantly break it.

1.) Unlike Mr Clinton and Mr Carter, nobody has really laid a glove on Obama politically (so far). That's kind of stunning to me, I can't remember any other President I can say that about, maybe Eisenhower.

2.) He has insisted on being President of all the people, whether they like it or not, and that is quite the right thing to do, and it drives the wingnuts nuts.

It also seems a bit early to be coming to conclusions about the results of his Presidency, however unsatisfying his first term has proved to be for those of us who want dramatic change.

Indeed Obama has an Everest of powder dryer than the Sahara as you pointed out..

Terrible shame to make use of that dry powder, wouldn't be prudent.

That's why Romney is running scared.

As for this part of your post --

Frankly, I would think that he does that because he actually wants you to get mad…

I think President Obama does it because he knows the law, and he knows that history will record his every move.
He knows that his critics are going to dissect his administration with a surgeon's scalpel under a micron microscope.
They are going to pour over every decision, every speech, every single move with a fine tooth comb looking for mistakes, miscues, and any missteps he may take along the way.
They are going to use a laser razor to try and cut him up and slice and dice him as much as they can before too very long because -- he is the best President the United States has had since FDR.

No American President has faced the challenges, or the outrageous level of obstruction, that President Obama has faced in his first term in office.
He is exactly the right guy we needed at exactly the right moment in time.

And history will record him as such.

I'd be interested in your opinion of my OP, which asks the question "How would the world be different if Obama had been busted for drugs".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002646575

Most of my replies so far say that Hillary would be POTUS and things wouldn't look much different, except maybe we'd have a public option.

I'm not sure I agree with that..

The question is: Can he be the truly transformational leader that America and the world needs? Or will he merely do what every other President has done - keep the tiny group of corporate and governmental elites that runs the country pointed in the same general direction for the short time it takes for us to stumble to the next election?

Laws can be changed, however. The legislature is mainly responsible for that, with the judicial system right behind it, in interpreting the laws to fit specific situations.

Laws run through the thread of our society through the years, as Presidents come and go. The law always reigns supreme. That's the beauty of it.

It's a difficult system. But it's better than most others I've heard of.