if not for President Obama's words, he wouldn't be in White House

If not for his words, he would not have steam rolled the stimulus package and his budget through the congress. There are other important policy matters and legislation working their way through at this very moment which will take the form of bold action in the correct direction.

Closing Guantanamo. Stopping Torture. Health Care Reform. Regenerated Economy. Civil Rights in this country. Reduction of Poverty efforts. Conflict resolution abroad. Stopping Iran's Nuclear program.

:)

I just think people need to get over their cynicism. Obama's power and abilities lie with YOU. The more you sit back as a chain smoking detached critic the less he gets accomplished. Be a community organizer. Grab your shovel and start digging out of the status quo.

But at the end of the day, whether positive or negative....words crafted well are the greatest power leading to transformative action. Without the power of words creating a vision for people to rally around, there is nothing but chaos and disorder.

Get ready. Here they come. LOL

:popcorn:

"Words, words, words--I'm so sick of words"!

I'll take the words that are getting things done, slowly, but their getting done.

Sorry, BeeGees mood. Happens sometimes.

Communication is a strong element in leadership, especially political leadership. Obama captures the mood of his audience and returns it to them in his speeches.

Once he won, though, he had the power of his office, and at first the power of popularity. That's what he used to steam roll his early works through Congress. That, and the power of his role as the head of the Democratic Party, the handler of the purse strings, and basically the key to reelection for a lot of Congress. Congresscritters aren't moved by words, they are moved by their need for reelection, and sometimes by their desire to do what they believe is right. They are moved by backroom deals, by high poll numbers, and by media exposure. They don't care about Obama's words, except in how he sways the polls with those words.

It gets harder from now on for Obama. He has to use political finesse and skill--two things his lack of experience at an executive position hurts--poltical threats and rewards, compromises, diplomacy, and everything else a president must use. Like Clinton, now and then he can use a speech to motivate the voters behind him, thus pressuring Congress to swing his way. But even there if he overuses it it will become less effective. Clinton only made his game-changing speeches when he had the success behind him to make his words resonate with Americans.

We'll see what Obama uses. He lacks experience, he lacks an understanding of politics in general, and I've been very unimpressed with his knowledge of where to draw the lines and how to make the compromises favor him. But I've been extremely impressed with his simple ability to succeed. At every stage of his career, he should have lost, but he's used a combination of tactics to win local, state, and now national election. He's cheated, he's gotten nasty and dirty, he's played nice, he's amassed corporate donations and rejected corporate donations. In short, he's done whatever he has needed to do to win.

He's proven that you shouldn't underestimate him. His greatest ability is his adaptability. If he wants it done, he'll find a way to get it done. Our problem now is that I don't think he knows what he wants to do anymore. He went in with high ideals--even if they were more expressed than believed--but with all the experts now giving him so much more to think about than he ever had before, I don't think he knows what the answers are anymore.

Gitmo, for instance. As a candidate, he wanted it closed. Maybe he was horrified by the torture, or maybe he just understood why voters were, but either way, the answer was simple. Now in office he has career intelligence officers saying "I agree with you that torture is wrong and ineffective most of the time, but do you really want to make a policy against all forms, when we've stopped Plot X (we all know there was a Plot X somewhere back there) because of it? Mr. President, we know what we're doing, and we don't need another president tying our hands and causing another 9-11 on our soil. If your predecessor had listened more to us, the WTC would still be there. Do you want that on your conscience?"

It's a powerful argument to the person whose decisions are life and death, are final, and are absolute. Someone like Clinton, who had been an executive for twelve years, or Poppy Bush, knew how to make those decisions and live with the consequences. LBJ let himself be pushed around, and ruined his legacy and killed millions because of it.

Obama has to find his own legs, and that's the part that worries me. I've never seen him as a solid believer in anything. His ideology has always been flexible. But he does have a core decency that many others--W, HW, Reagan, Nixon--lacked, and if he can find his feet he can do great things.

But I think that's his problem now. It's not his inability to accomplish what he wants. It's his indecision about what he wants in the face of the overwhelming reality he has had to learn since taking office. If he finds that, he'll accomplish what he wants. Of course, that doesn't mean he will decide he wants what many of us want, but he's still more likely to do so than McCain, W, or the rest of the others.

My semi-random thoughts. Not that anyone will read this far, especially with my BeeGees beginning. Still, it beats working.

totally. But I do agree with the essence of what you say. And hey, nothing wrong with the BeeGees, IMO.

I probably won't agree with all of it in a month or two, either. That's mostly a commentary on my memory, though. :hi: