MotherJones:in 2 years Obama has done more to enact liberal agenda than Bush did 4 conserv agenda

The fiscal conservatives and libertarians might agree - they didn't like Dubya much, either.

Obama continued a helluva lot of it.

It really detracts from the 24/7 hate fest.

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that article. I know the irrational hatred of Obama here....I can now say that many people here do not use the facts when it comes to Obama...they hyperspeculate, then use what they hyperspeculated about as fact and then get all emotional against Obama...it's an interesting situation....

It is crazy how facts don't penetrate the hatred.

I'm going to use that...Obama derangement syndrome!

It's crazy how facts don't penetrate the unquestioning devotion.

It's a two-way street ya know.

street....you can take the other street :-)

marching in lockstep, ya know.

:hi:

i think sometimes this is a GOP place

some don't even hide it any more. They don't want to hear about anything positive. They will twist until they can make it a negative.

Graphic from January 2010: CQ: Obama's Winning Streak On Hill Unprecedented

Presidential Success
On roll-call votes where the president had a clear position, what percentage of the time did Congress support the president's position?

There is another way to interpret this - Obama will not take a strong position if he thinks there will be opposition.

you must admire the heck out of Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.

:rofl:

"Contrary to his reputation, Bush mostly succeeded by pressing a moderate, and sometimes even liberal, agenda. Tax cuts aside, which he passed solely with Republican support, the only real ruthlessness he showed toward Democrats on behalf of a conservative priority was the campaign hardball he played to add a union-busting provision to the Homeland Security bill. That was about it for presidential toughness. Ironically, the biggest show of ruthlessness during the Bush years was in the appointment of judges, but the ruthlessness there was wielded by Orrin Hatch, who made it easier to confirm conservative judges by peremptorily changing the blue slip rule in a remarkably cynical display of naked power politics. Democrats responded by filibustering a bunch of judges, which was also pretty unprecedented, and the whole thing eventually got resolved by a group of centrist senators called the Gang of 12. In this case, both sides displayed some ruthlessness, but not President Bush. He was just about the only person not really involved.

I'm not trying to make it sound like presidents are powerless. They can set agendas, they have control of executive orders, they have a pretty free hand in foreign policy, they can sway public opinion, they can lead their own party, and they can bargain with the other party.1 But Richard Neustadt taught us a long time ago that, especially on domestic issues, presidential power is distinctly limited. There's just not that much in the way of ruthless arm-twisting that they can do these days, and while Obama may not be as creative on this score as he ought to be, neither was Bush. That's more a reflection of political reality than it is of the character of either one of them."

Medicare Part D and NCLB were triangulating bills. One of his biggest failures was immigration reform, which had Democratic support and unified Republican opposition.

He added the biggest entitlement program since LBJ, quadrupled federal spending (and oversight) for education, and tried to get a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. We don't like them (any more than conservatives ended up liking Welfare Reform) because he was pretty good at triangulating and gave them all a conservative spin, but surely you can see how that's a liberal domestic agenda template.

Really?

nor do i see expanding fed control of educ as liberal, either; especially the way Bush did this

Triangulation mostly works on the squishy middle.

I call bullshit on this article

At this point it matters little. Obama caved on tax cuts which is going to finish off the economy and with it his presidency.

LBJ 50 years ago Bush really didn't need to do too much.

Whereas Bush passed legislation by fear or fiat because he refused to compromise on his agenda... Obama has repeatedly capitulated to the worst of the Republican ideas about how to run our Government. He scorns and upbraids his liberal and progressive support, while holding meetings with Wall Street and Corporate overlords.

Republicans are ruining this country! Obama needs to just say that and that he won't deal with it anymore. But he needs the campaign contributions for 2012, so...

:(

...because I can't really think of any. He did trade extended unemployment benefits for a tax cut extension, but raising taxes in a recovery was arguable anyway. He also went "mandate" rather than "public option" on healthcare, as he didn't have the votes for a public option.

Other than those two (which hardly fit the description) I can't think of anything.

also got the START Treaty approval and repeal of DADT in exchange for the continuation of Bush tax cuts for 2 years...

he tax cuts were extended, costing us revenue to RUN THE COUNTRY WITH, DADT is STILL IN EFFECT, and it was already struck down by a federal judge... Obama simply chose to IGNORE THAT RULING

oh yeah, he's been great!

that surrendering the PO was a capitulation, then i guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.

John Avarosis takes apart that MoJo article here...

http://www.americablog.com/2011/08/barack-obama-best-president-ever.html


First 4 graphs:

"Sorry, I just can't let this one pass. First off, the biggest complaint about President Obama is that he is the king of missed opportunity. Even were I to concede the good he's done (and I don't concede Benen's hagiography at all), Obama was handed a huge mandate, a public craving leadership after a failed GOP presidency and an economy in tatters, an opposition party in ruin, a whopping approval rating, and control of both houses of Congress (with 59, and then 60 Senators on his side, and a healthy majority in the House).

What did the President do with this historic confluence of power and opportunity handed to him? He immediately began to compromise on day one with first the stimulus and then health care reform.

Rather than go big and push for what was needed and/or what he promised, President Obama let incrementalism be his guide, set his sights low, then sat back and didn't get involved (he calls it "leading from behind") until it was nearly too late. The result? A stimulus that reasonable people knew was too small when it was proposed (the results of which continue to haunt us to this day, and may just lose us the Senate and the White House next year - not just because it was too small, but because the President failed to defend it and now it's a political albatross in addition to not nearly effective enough), and a health care law that nobody can even remember what it did (other than help people with pre-existing conditions). And not to knock the health care law, because I hear it will some day do great things (that was a brilliant move, by the way, making the important parts of the health care law not kick in for years), but it too could have been so much more had the President actually tried. He sat back for months, ceded power to health care reform's enemies in congress, and by the time he got involved, the public option, which was the center piece of his plan for cutting costs and expanding coverage (even though now he pretends it was a minor footnote), was dead. And forget about doing anything about drug prices, God forbid we tick off big pharma by simply asking them why they're charging me $25 in France for the same asthma medicine they charge me $155 for in Washington, DC?

Then there's the President's seeming inability to successfully articulate an effective argument in defense of anything he wants to do or has already done, so that now the public thinks the stimulus didn't create a single job, and they hate "health care reform" even though they actually love the details of it when you don't mention those details are part of "health care reform." And there's no need to revisit the President's negotiating skills, as the deficit deal debacle is still fresh in everyone's minds."


<snip>

...and how much good did that do anyone? The president can't sign a bill if congress won't pass it. What was passed is a huge step in the right direction, especially if you consider the 40 or so years since democratic presidents have been trying, and the absolute obstructionism from the right that Obama has faced since inauguration.

I think one's overall opinion depends largely on who's narrative of events you accept, and then of what you think is possible to achieve in our "times". My news sources are NPR, the BBC, and here, and I don't watch television or pay much attention to the "blogosphere". I grew up before the Fairness Doctrine was ended, so I never gained the ability to form my opinions based on other peoples opinions - the habit then was rather to look at facts, sequences of events, statements of those involved, and finally results, and then to form one's own opinions.

I grew up before the Fairness Doctrine was ended, so I never gained the ability to form my opinions based on other peoples opinions - the habit then was rather to look at facts, sequences of events, statements of those involved, and finally results, and then to form one's own opinions.

Which is why you probably (along with every other moderately intelligent person on the planet) have absolutely no use for John Aravosis.

I get my news from some of the same sources as you. BBC and NPR are bookmarked on my browser... but so is Think Progress, FDL and Glenn Greenwald at Salon. I don't do HuffPo or TPM (ok, occasionally TPM) anymore. I'd love to spend my days researching current event topics to the extent that i could call myself an expert (or at least well informed)... but i have a limited internet connection, a full time job, and a family to tend to. I tend to find sources i trust and stick with them. I look to Aravosis for good instinctual reaction and good summary... i don't always agree with his view. But in this instance, he says pretty much what i wanted to say, so i pointed to his words.

Obama is a terrible negotiator. I've been pulling my hair out over this from the very beginning of his term. You cannot start negotiations from the point you want to attain, if you do you'll always get less than you want. He has done this so many times, i cannot help but think it's intentional. Will you refute this?

I'll be 40 this year, though i don't think age has much to do with experience. As far as the Fairness Doctrine is concerned, having grown up without it (mostly), i'd love to see it reappear, but i like to think it's made me sharper at discerning journalism from hackery. In fact, i would highly suggest this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Journalism-Newspeople-Completely-Updated/dp/0307346706/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312595686&sr=1-1
if you want to know what i'm thinking about while i'm reading an online or print "news" article.

:shrug:

Franken was sworn in 49 days before Ted Kennedy died. And I believe Kennedy was last able to vote in the Senate months before Franken was sworn in.

that is obvious by looking at this list of accomplishments www.whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com :-(

Whereas Bush passed legislation by fear or fiat because he refused to compromise on his agenda

Can you give me an example? He passed the tax cuts through reconciliation, much like Obama did with health care reform. Everything else was either bipartisan (Medicare Part D and NCLB) or died (immigration reform -- which, incidentally, had Democratic support and infuriated Republicans -- SS privatization)

Thanks for the excellent analysis.

and heads explode. :popcorn:

happened :-( feel sorry for people who have irrational hatred for another human being...it's takes alot of energy and emotions...they must be exhausted at the end of the day... :-(

With our help and a Democratic Congress returned to power after the 2012 elections!

We know it won't penetrate the Web of Willful Witlessness that blankets this place, but I appreciate your posting.

Oh no! There's that DAMN LIST AGAIN! You know, "Teh List" that drives some people here ABSOLUTELY BONKERS because it refutes beyond all doubt that their endless whining that the president "hasn't done anything" or "is a republican" is nothing but the ravings of the recalcitrant and uninformed.



Happy to rec

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By 2006 conservative approval of GWB was something like 38%.

38% among conservatives in 2006? What poll was that?

:shrug:

Sorta like the "same as Bush" "continuing Bush..." "left leaning Republican"...

...you get the idea...don't you? :think:

The point is not simply "better than Bush".

The point of the article is that Obama has accomplished more for the left in 2.5 years, than Bush was able to accomplish for the right in his first 4 years.

Those aren't the same.