myiW Current Conditions and Forecasts Community Forums Buy and Sell Services
 
Hi guest · myAccount · Log in
 SearchSearch   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   RegisterRegister 
Can Obama lead?
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    iWindsurf Community Forum Index -> Politics, Off-Topic, Opinions
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17743
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 11:22 pm    Post subject: Can Obama lead? Reply with quote

I’m still waiting for that definitive treatise on the leadership capability of John McCain, and George Bush, and maybe even Michele Bachman. I so want to believe that the “Obama can’t lead” is a fair assessment based on visible metrics, consistently applied, rather than yet another attempt to remind the basest elements in the conservative fringe that Obama is black. I want to believe better of you all, (well, I’m not sure anything would convince me about Matty), but I need a little evidence.

So far I have this little snippet from the 2008 campaign debate between Palin and Biden, where Palin claimed that McCain was pushing for regulation of Fannie and Freddie. (source was fact checking by MSNBC)

Quote:
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska led an effort in 2005 to tighten regulation on the mortgage underwriters — McCain joined as a co-sponsor a year later. The legislation was never taken up by the full Senate, then under Republican control.


Then we can look to McCain's role in trying to avert a more complete bank failure during the 2008 campaign. Here’s the insider view, from Hank Paulson:

Quote:
Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson acknowledged on Sunday that during the intense and grinding days when he was assembling the bank bailout, the two 2008 presidential candidates left decidedly different impressions about their economic platforms and expertise.
"I was very impressed that candidate Obama was very concerned with what was going on and was very supportive," said the former Bush hand who is promoting his new book "On The Brink," in which he makes similar observations. "Candidate McCain, I will admit, gave me a few more anxious days and hours."


It is apparent to me that TARP doesn’t pass without Obama’s involvement, and is a poor bill without Obama’s insistence on fiscal accountability. Of course that was missing from the bill, and even with the President backing it, it went down in the House initially, with too few Republicans supporting it.

Of the $700 billion authorized, somewhat less than $500 billion was expended, and the net result is expected to be a loss of about $50 billion. To me that is what leadership is all about, and neither Bush nor McCain could deliver their party—or a piece of legislation that would work.

And then we have health care, a goal that has eluded Democrats for about 40 years. Although some on this forum predicted that Obama didn’t have the leadership to make it happen, it turned out that he did. Not, of course, without Pelosi.


That is what leadership is all about to me. Making difficult decisions in difficult times, and convincing enough people to go along to make it happen. While he has disappointed me in myriad ways, I am convinced that he is smart enough and well enough advised to know the vote count on all of the initiatives, and to move in the direction that is possible. Having 60 full voiced whackos in the House makes many things impossible, and other things very difficult.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
MalibuGuru



Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9293

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 1:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

A leader is that rascal who attracts all of the girls. Who leads other men through inspiration and hard work. He is a giver. He is inspirational. He is tough and fair. His enemies fear him, and his friends would die for him.

He cannot be afraid to change his ideology when it is proven faulty. And he must have the powerful force of persuasion to convert his followers, who in the end, will not fall for false prophets.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
feuser



Joined: 29 Oct 2002
Posts: 1508

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 7:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
A leader is that rascal who attracts all of the girls. Who leads other men through inspiration and hard work. He is a giver. He is inspirational. He is tough and fair. His enemies fear him, and his friends would die for him.

He cannot be afraid to change his ideology when it is proven faulty. And he must have the powerful force of persuasion to convert his followers, who in the end, will not fall for false prophets.


Come on, Bard. I like Obama's style, too, but that posting is clearly the sign of a good old man-crush. Very Happy

_________________
florian - ny22

http://www.windsurfing.kasail.com/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

stevenbard wrote:
A leader is that rascal who attracts all of the girls. Who leads other men through inspiration and hard work. He is a giver. He is inspirational. He is tough and fair. His enemies fear him, and his friends would die for him.

He cannot be afraid to change his ideology when it is proven faulty. And he must have the powerful force of persuasion to convert his followers, who in the end, will not fall for false prophets.


Obama, OTOH, attracts hypocritical women who are not proud of their country. He inspires primarily welfare recipients, takes more vacations and has more celebrity galas than any politician in memory, and steadfastly refuses to do the work required in his legally mandated job description and urged in writing by his own party (e.g., present a program to fix the economy). He's a taker -- his own salary and wants to take ours, too -- and give it to people unwilling to earn their own so they will vote for him, aka the Democratic Party paradigm. (That some of it goes to those incapable of self-support is serendipitous, not paramount.)

Tough? Fair? Hardly. He whines that everything is bad luck or someone else's fault, and states repeatedly from the dais that his concept of "fairness" is based on Marx's concept of wealth redistribution. The nation's political enemies laugh or cry at his weakness, and his economic enemies -- the unemployed, investors, employers, bankers, most states, most economists, the heads of Germany, China, Venezuela, et.al. -- strongly castigate his economic policies ... when they can discern one. His latest "bold plan", which took him 938 days in office to reveal, is to announce that he will announce a jobs plan as soon as he can figger one out, maybe this Fall, by which time another 37 banks, 537 small businesses, and 8,386 citizens will have gone bankrupt and another 246,675 legal and illegal aliens will have run south across the border seeking jobs in Mexico's far superior economy (three times the growth rate of ours). His friends are Hollywood and sports celebs who would die only for fame and flashbulbs, not for some individual, and our soldiers die for their country and families more than for this floundering ditz.

He has proven incapable of changing his Marxist and Keynesian ideology despite historical, current, national, and global proof it fails. He couldn't persuade even ONE SENATOR of EITHER PARTY to vote for his budget, and according to every poll his followers are falling like maple leaves in a Halloween gale.

His idea of leadership is having some toady leak one of his ideas (e.g. wounded soldiers should buy their own insurance as soon as they're released from the ER), after which he takes credit only if and when it flies.

What an asinine question. "Does $#!+ stink?" makes more sense, is more debatable, and addresses the same topic.

And don't you dare imply he's a rascal you racist pig!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 9:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
Obama...takes more vacations...than any politician in memory...

Straight from the Fox "News" fiction machine.

Read this.

One need only enter "obama bush vacation" into Google to find a long list of sources debunking that Faux "Fick-shun."
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pueno wrote:
isobars wrote:
Obama...takes more vacations...than any politician in memory...


One need only enter "obama bush vacation" into Google to find a long list of sources debunking that Faux "Fick-shun."


You deliberately edited my comment into a false one. What I actually wrote was "takes more vacations and has more celebrity galas than any politician in memory".

Convince us Bush had more vacations and celebrity galas than the Obamas, who wallow in Hollywood and sports celebrities. I'd bet the Bushes have never even heard of many of the empty-headed glitterati the Obamas host at taxpayer expense; I surely haven't, and don't respect celebrity worship, especially when extended to criminals and those whose so-called "music" glorifies them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
You deliberately edited my comment into a false one.

Nahhh.... You made a false statement and I simply sharpened the focus. But I'm delighted that you dislike when someone does to you what you do to others.


isobars wrote:
I'd bet the Bushes have never even heard of many of the empty-headed glitterati the Obamas host at taxpayer expense...

I wouldn't be surprised if the Bushes have never heard of Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms, either. That you characterize Obama's tastes in entertainment as "empty-headed" may be as much a measure of you as of him, and perhaps more so.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
feuser



Joined: 29 Oct 2002
Posts: 1508

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 9:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

pueno wrote:

...
I wouldn't be surprised if the Bushes have never heard of Bach, Beethoven, or Brahms, either. That you characterize Obama's tastes in entertainment as "empty-headed" may be as much a measure of you as of him, and perhaps more so.


Huh? These three are now the measure of one's understanding of western civilization? What about Schubert?
Very Happy

_________________
florian - ny22

http://www.windsurfing.kasail.com/
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17743
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 9:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The late piano sonatas. As good as it gets.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
GURGLETROUSERS



Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643

PostPosted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 3:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now just a minute here!

How can any music lover, driving home over a deserted mountain pass complete with ruins of old castle silhouetted on a hill top by a glorious red sunset, (and after a weeks windsurfing), not be transported to heaven while absorbing the atmospheric ambience to the seductive strains of the prelude to Act 1 of Wagners Lohengrin???? (Even if it is the Berlin Phil recording under that big head Karajan!) Even Nat King Cole is out of his league there!

Pah! Horses for courses I say!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    iWindsurf Community Forum Index -> Politics, Off-Topic, Opinions All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Page 1 of 4

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum

myiW | Weather | Community | Membership | Support | Log in
like us on facebook
© Copyright 1999-2007 WeatherFlow, Inc Contact Us Ad Marketplace

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group