I don't understand the complaints about Obama

We've endured a right-wing drift since 1982, which got so bad that for many years even liberals shied away from that word, and used "progressive" instead. While Bill Clinton provided a pause during those dark days, Clinton was well to the right of Obama; after all, he had to work with Newt Gingrich's Congress. The Democrats, well before Obama, in response to the right-wing drift, went to the right themselves, recruiting candidates who in another era would have been Republicans. As the Democrats went right, the Republicans went further right. That's what Obama inherited. Despite the fact that at least a quarter of the Congressional Democrats are quite conservative, Obama's stimulus bill is a landmark piece of liberalism. His health care reform is as progressive as Roosevelt's initial Social Security plan, which merely provided a building block for future progress. The financial reform act is not all it could be, but it completely reverses the right wing mentality of deregulation. Obama's appointments have liberalized the courts and made the financial sector more accountable (though certainly not accountable enough).

As far as Afghanistan goes, we should probably get out, but we are there fighting true fascists, even if the people we're backing are not exactly progressives. The Taliban are absolutely awful even when left in peace. They are bigoted, sexist, homophobic, violent, and cruel. They represent the worst of religion. The fight against the Taliban can certainly be seen as liberal. On Don't Ask/Don't Tell, Obama has not taken the most aggressive track, but it appears it's on the way to being repealed, and I suspect the plan is to first get through the elections, since the righties love to exploit gay rights as a wedge issue. I believe we will see climate legislation and some sort of immigration amnesty coming up. After all, big business has always been pro-immigrant for it sees immigration as a means of keeping the cost of labor low. On the economy, of course we wish things got better faster, but we just have to compare Obama's success to that of other presidents who inherited recessions. Obama, with his stimulus bill, moved very quickly and very aggressively, and the payoff is that the economy appears to be recovering faster than it did under Reagan, who inherited a lesser recession.

I don't think Obama has been perfect, and especially fault him for not educating the American people about why liberalism has historically worked well when compared to conservativism. But, overall, given the right wing drift of the last 25 years, I think Obama has done a very good job.

Obama clearly governs as center-right even though during campaigning he was overwhelmingly supported for his liberal beliefs. So consdering his right-style apporach he is not doing a good job. I guess i would respect him if he fought and lost with progressive ideas than always, ALWAYS appeasing to the right.

He campaigned as such and is doing a good job helping to push through liberal legislation. When is the last time a health care reform bill was passed? Regulating Wall Street has to be done, we are living the idea that it could run wild. So many other things that have been done, but none are quite good enough?

not an expansion - reform.

This is just more of not good enough. They could have held out for perfection for another 100 years, but it was time to get off the pot.

At 2 my niece was diagnosed with what is usually a deadly cancer. She survived. She is now 13. That cancer has been viewed as a pre-existing condition ever since. As a result, her insurance coverage has been very limited, mainly to common childhood illness, basic injuries, etc.

Because of the cancer treatment, she's at risk for future illnesses, infertility, other stuff ... all of which would be excluded prior to the passage of this bill.

The bill wasn't perfect, but this is one example of how many many people will be helped and protected through this bill. Perfect no, better than nothing ... absolutely.

Your niece and others won't be turned down any more.

It's actually mandated profit for the insurance companies that wrote the legislation.

really,:sarcasm:

compromising it to appease the fugs is more important, not having real libs around him and holding close those chickenshit corporate thugs is not my idea of good presidential behavior. staying in the wars is another. allowing bush's bs to continue. I could go on.

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Oh wait, you were serious.

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We got Glass-Steagall back?

Stupid, naive or just plain evil?

and policies, not about personalities and Parties, until then your premise is just a made up thing that I personally do not think is true at all. Data will prove your point, arm waving declarations will not.
I take particular umbrage at your own and the President's use of basic human rights as a wedge issue, and claiming it it the other side doing it. The President himself uses the rhetoric of the religious right, and uses the hate preachers, such as McClurkin (who has called us 'vampires' and child killers) to drive that wedge with his own hand. That is something that needs to be dealt with honestly, or this goes nowhere at all. Because this is about equality, not just DADT. About DOMA and full equal rights, which Obama is opposed to for the same reasons Palin is, like it or not.
I think straight people beating their spouses should be a wedge issue. I think child abuse and neglect should be a wedge issue. In fact, if these folks are really Christians, they should all be working to repeal all divorce laws, 'cause Jesus hated divorce and condemned the divorced in harsh terms. Never hear a word about divorce from the 'holy pants' set, the anti-'those people' crowd, the church folk. Never a single word about what their faith really speaks to. Not a word. And that silence defines them as hypocritical slanderers and gossips.

The Google is your friend.

Do you have any Muslim friends? I do, and they say that Taliban take parts of the Koran out of context in order to impose an oppressive belief system. Not only do the Taliban have reactionary beliefs, but they appear to have allied themselves with Al Qaeda for quite a few years now. I blame the Afghanistan mess on Reagan. We should have left it to the Soviets to overthrown religious fundamentalism, but instead Reagan trained the Afghan religious right.

1) the Taliban is a tribal religious movement with zero nationalist aspirations (and no international agenda, for that matter, although that's not necessarily relevant in this context);

2) the Taliban's civil objective is primarily to create an islamist social order (and primarily among Pashtuns), not a corporate/authoritarian alliance of business and government.

Not a fascist among them, most likely.

and the evidence of that was that I did not capitalize "fascist." Fascists are reactionary, and given the Taliban's view of the Koran, I think they're certainly reactionary.

who in turn are a majority of the afghanistan people. We are allied with minority tribal warlords who are, for the most part, just as repressive as the taliban and generally more corrupt. The central government is effectively the mayor of kabul and nothing else. A mission to kill or capture bin laden and his buddies might have had a chance of success eight years ago, a mission to build a multi-ethnic secular state in afghanistan is as doomed to failure as the soviet effort to do just that was 30 years ago.

for forty days and nights, it would not be good enough for some people. And even though there are some who might get disappointed with our President they may talk a good game but they know what it was like under the previous administration and they will not let repugs get back in control. We have become very impatient as a hurting people. A lot of us want the hurt to go away right now. But it was a systematic robbery of are country's most precious asset. It's people and their livelihoods. Greed knows no ethnic background,no religion,no hopes,no dreams,no friends, no family, no lights, no gas, no homes, no food, no investments. But yet it manipulates all of these things to pit the American people against one another. When a person learns better they do better. But first they must have a change in mindset. So those who speak doom and gloom are really not trying to make the situation better, they are just capitulating to the old way of thinking because it easier and familiar.There will be some who will not agree with that statement but if it doesn't pertain to you then don't get offended. We have a President who is doing well despite the obstacles,lies,racism,negative name-calling rhetoric,republicans,tea party members,threats,ignorance,and lack of support when he does something that other Presidents have not done or thought about doing.Personally I choose this President over the choices we had any day.B-) B-) B-)

in light of the fact that the Blue Dogs keep blocking and watering down a lot of his legislation.

...of changing the ship's course by at least two whole degrees. Unfortunately, we aren't far from the waterfall, and what's been done so far won't change the outcome.

We need a lot more change, and the time left to act is getting shorter daily.

We got out of VietNam when the consensus across the country was that we should get out. Even now, though, there are the dead-enders who believe that "we could have won in only we had ..(fill in the blank), but we were betrayed by Liberals/wimps unable to stay the course/etc."

What I would like to see Obama do more of is placing the blame exactly where it belongs: with Republicans and Democratic Blue Dogs. There are three branches to the US government; Obama can't deliver unless he has at least one other branch behind him.

it is difficult at best to point the finger at conservadems and pukes when you empower them and follow their basic ideology.

He co-opted the entire front line of the DLC and then threw in a health handful of actual declared pukes and tried to get more.

The only liberal he appointed was Solis at Labor and she is clearly in the backseat at best and certainly no flamethrower, openly questioning the need for "traditional unions".

This is the same kat that made Max Baucus his health care quarterback and breathed new life into the Catfood Commission, even going so far as to captain the thing with Alan Simpson and the snake Bowles along with big business "stakeholders" and a solitary token union leader.

Pretending Obama isn't contributing to the problems is willfully blind, he has made every indication that he is a believer in much of the failed ideology that brought us here and is dedicated to preserving the systems and structures that have wrecked our nation.

job.

But I sometimes wonder: What happened to that shrill shrieking nagging 'scream' from the right prior to the 08 election about the most 'liberal voting record' in Congress????

Does ANYONE remember that shrill little brat whine from the right?

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Have given the people a faith in Government. That is what we need to prove to the American people...Democrats have good ideas that work. He started off ok then got sidetracked by healthcare. I still think that was his fatal error. Now he let the benefits of his early efforts wither and people have lost confidence in the Democrats as good policy thinkers. This was an opportunity to demonstrate what good governance looks like. But no jobs and a weak recovery simply won't do it.

it's heaavily influenced by repukes and corporations