Obama: I’d rather be ‘really good one-term president’ than ‘mediocre two-term president.’

He has three years left to make up for the first year he pissed away completely.

What he did was piss off some people who had delusions of grandeur about what could get done.

I suspect if he had known that he'd still be trying to pass a health care bill, especially this one, he might have chosen to do something else for the last year. This has gone on a good 5 months longer than he really wanted. Even he might be looking at this as "pissing away" a years worth of effort on something that will ultimately undermine much of what else he wants to accomplish. 20/20 hindsight for sure, but none the less, probably not the year he'd a preferred.

He lacked a disciplined Senate, but that is hardly his fault. If he tried it later, the majorities may not have been there.

It was a very disciplined senate, just not one that was going to cater to his schedule or desires. As you say "no other time" may be true, but the assertion is, knowing what he knows now, he would have put it off until a second term, if at all. It has potentially cost him the rest of his agenda.

I think the way he has pursued his platform this past year is his cynical attempt to get reelected for a second term.

Basically the strategy is to cater and bend over backward for the elites, the military industrial complex, Wall Street and health insurance companies and big Pharma. Interesting that this people are continuing to fill Obama's campaign coffers as we bail these entities out and Obama cuts his deals with them. All of course a coincidence.

in exchange for the presidency? Sure seems like it.

Sounds like it is up your alley:

http://www.myspace.com/tom_heneghan_intel

Basically, this theory is that Bush and Clinton appointed Obama President and Hillary wants to kill Obama so she can become President herself.
Have fun.

Especially the mouthbreahters who keep insisting that the two parties are the same

Yet people that see the obvious are "mouthbreathers"? You sound like a goose-stepping party loyalist.

Yes. Mouthbreathers. Simpletons. Fools. The ignorant herds. People who judge the world by singular criteria that are only ever completely white or completely black.

I may sound like a "goose-stepping party loyalist" but you sound like an ignoramus.

The real job of the President since Bush (as hired by the conservatives really running the country) is to walk our economy down, to weaken us as a means of eliminating the middle class, and as a result the "winner" of the Presidency doesnt expect reelection as the populace grows angrier by the hour.

They will just "elect" another chump to do their bidding every four years, no problem.

A single-termer has all the power in the world, b/c they have nothing tying them down.

Or maybe they won't touch the case b/c it will lead back to their own election fraud. If you have a better explanation, I'd love to hear it.

I can't think of one. Probably because the "great" ones tended to get reelected because they were great. Not that every two-termer has been fantastic, but I can't think of a "great" one term President.

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object to, nobody expected him to clean everything up in a year.

and I do not consider making a deal with Pharma for 80 billion over 10 years, instead of the 300 billion mentioned in the Obama/Biden HC plan a better direction.

I sleep better knowing who we have in office! Thank goodness is right!

version down people's throats.

:sarcasm:

?

I'm hoping that President Obama will come out fighting.

Losing 1 Senator doesn't really mean jack sh*t since we obviously didn't have 60 votes anyway, so I hope that we see more of the fighter Obama from the Primary season, rather than the go-along-to-get-along Pres Obama from the past year.

Whatever.:boring:

My opinion EXACTLY! FYI: I voted AGAINST Joe Lieberman in 2000, but I'm learning!

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depression of catostrophic proportions.

Everybody goddamn well knows it was a stickup.

done. That was the only "reasonable" solution, at the time. The underlying problem, according to most economists, is that they're "too big to fail." Essentially, that is what has to change.

It was bullshit.

Wish I could get a deal like that . . .

One pays considerable interest on it. Getting a no interest loan is . . . basically impossible. Unless you're a really big bank with no money and good connections.

It'$ Refre$hing!

he may well get his wish.

While an admirable sentiment- it was (everyone has to agree) a fruitless and naive endeavor from the outset.

....about the one term part.

or his agenda might prove to be the best thing that happened to this country in decades.

- and "Mediocre" presidents rarely see a second term. Obama's inference doesn't fit the logic or history of the circumstances he proposes.

probably be a 'mediocre' first term president and that fits logically..........he still doesn't get it!!!

I'm still waiting for the fighter in him. All I've seen is "bipartisanship" bullshit.

Emanuel

Geithner

Bernanke

Holder

Gates


Those assholes need to go.

And, then he needs to play hard ball politics with the shitheads running Congress.

he believes they're doing a good job. It's ridiculous to see people spending so much time demanding people be fired when it's clear the administration has no intention of firing them.

Same thing with Reid, people have been demanding that he be removed as majority leader for years, and the Senate turned around an re-elected him unanamously to the position.

Seems like a complete waste of energy.

and transparency on derivatives, but they were able to push her out.

Years later we bail out the speculators and now talk about a freeze on non-security spending.


The Woman Greenspan, Rubin & Summers Silenced

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/370925/the_woman_greenspan_rubin_summers_silenced

"Break the Glass" was the code-name high-level Treasury Department figures gave the $700 billion bailout; it was to be used only as a last- resort measure.

Now millions have been sprayed and damaged by broken glass.

But more than a decade ago, a woman you're likely never to have heard of, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-- a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading--was the oracle whose warnings about the dangerous boom in derivatives trading just might have averted the calamitous bust now engulfing the US and global markets. Instead she was met with scorn, condescension and outright anger by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers. In fact, Greenspan, the man some affectionately called "The Oracle," spent his political capital cheerleading these disastrous financial instruments..."


Obama wants to freeze discretionary spending for 3 years

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/25/obama.spending.freeze/?hpt=T1

"...The proposed freeze, which could help position Obama in the political center by sharpening his credentials on fiscal discipline, would exempt the budgets of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, along with some international programs.

"We are at war, and we're going to make sure our troops are funded adequately," one of the senior officials said..."

All that is true.

and George H.W. Bush was not a "Good" one-term president ...

Let me rephrase that ... compared to his two-"term" son, George H. W. Bush was a GREAT one-term president ...

.... he's said it before. (and I dont say "spin" to bash)

love it.

"Really good" presidents can get a second term from the people too. What an odd false dichotomy being created here

n/t

n/t

By mandating we all buy food.

.

is already addressing childhood hunger.

will he then announce plans to be a mediocre one-term president, thus splitting the difference? :crazy:

Nope.

He doesn't see this?!

some consider it hyperbole.



Edited to fix link.

It couldn't possibly be another thread of your own, could it?

What exactly is the problem with linking to an already posted item?

Anyway, the link has been fixed.

DUers don't dissapoint. Well, actually, they do.

I hate to disappoint those DUers who like to play little games like this.

He gets credit for acknowledging this.

Everybody is rational and self interested including you and democracy rewards rational self interested politicians when they strive to get re-elected.

Fictional President Bartlet said it best...

"We run for things! From the day a Congressman is sworn in he's got to raise $10,000 a week so he can get reelected! A President gets to govern for 18 months. We try to get people to vote for us and in the process we hope the people force
us to do good things."

This is what Obama was talking about with his "we are the change we've been waiting for". He's going to try and get people to vote for him. People need to force him to do good things in the process.

I don't think he needs to lose any sleep over that. Right now he's looking like a below average one term president.

A terrible one term president.

Who is he trying to kid? Yeah, Plouffe is back because he's not interested in making sure that in 3 years he gets reelected.......

:eyes:



:7

He's been awful - and will be a well deserved one termer if he continues on his present path...

simply awful president - all bullshit no RESULTS!!!

"but at least he's not bush*!!!"...that's just not working anymore...

and would vote him/her out?

Brilliant politics there! Let's insult voters even more and rack up a landslide.

.

The president has a tendency to throw words out without considering their actual meaning or longer-term consequences.

This one sounds like it was tested by some pollster or another.

Means less than nothing.

Obama has a tendency to keep doing his job while some people are stuck parsing words, long after comments have been clarified.

That would better fit the laissez-faire attitude he's demonstrated while Baucus has "helped" the process along this past year.

Somebody better straighten him out real soon.

You can spend all your political capital and do what needs to be done and let the voters decide if they like it in 2012.

..