The FAUX/GOP tactics of subjective evaluations are only political power plays, propaganda to assume superiority. Are US international relations bad? compared to what? Obama will or won't do what? Obama passes off responsibility, for what. Where did he say that? And, you can't be obstructionist and decry the lack of Change. FAUX, politics of the absurd.
By this point it's blatantly clear that the guy has no business leading. He was unqualified to take the role in the first place, and his performance has matched that. Lack of accountability is just one of many signs that he can't lead.
To start with, in this instance it wasn't Obama blaming anyone, it was the author of the article and the blame was given to Bush for invading Iraq, something for which Bush deserves the sole blame. Again, I haven't hear Obama blame Bush directly in years. The cries of "blame Bush" come up whenever conservatives want to blame Obama for everything, INCLUDING THINGS THAT ARE OBJECTIVELY NOT HIS FAULT. If you honestly believe that Obama hasn't owned anything at all, you need to check your sources, they are lying to you.
Right, but why hasn't Obama come out and told the author of the article posted by bigtexxx that he shouldn't mention anything bad that Bush did ever again? That's just what a good leader does. It's ancient history with absolutely no future implications!
See, this is what I am talking about. A non-specific, blanket statement assuming a qualitative assessment without any specific information, comparisons, contrast or alternatives. Just worthless puffery. My new favorite word: Puffery From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Puffery as a legal term refers to promotional statements and claims that express subjective rather than objective views, which no "reasonable person" would take literally.[1] Puffery serves to "puff up" an exaggerated image of what is being described and is especially featured in testimonials.
You know, I've listened to this little back-and-forth for a while.... ...and I just can't seem to stop wondering exactly how much the President can actually do outside of the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government. I can agree with some of okierock's sentiment here, personally. I "inherited" a particularly negative set of circumstances at my place of employment. I'm a web designer for an energy company. For a very long time, it seems, prior to my arrival, the basic functions of my job were either ignored or underperformed, so much so that collective apathy around the office concerning my job seemed acceptable. It took a lot of time and effort (not to mention just plain luck) to garner enough respect in both my abilities and my willingness to do whatever it took to perform a satisfactory job, to start to right the ship a bit. The greatest asset I had at my disposal, however, was and is a large degree of autonomy in both assessing what was and wasn't working, and execution in forming and implementing procedures that could be easily adapted and replicated across the company at our local level. I don't take as much credit for things being better now than they were before I got here as I probably could (as many of my co-workers routinely offer), but I did have to absorb a lot of the negative reports of my predecessors, and try to get everybody past the idea of "blame" and into the idea of repair and progress. The past had to be somebody's fault, human nature being what it is, and it just seemed to move things along if I accepted the "blame" in this position, and through my own efforts, re-instill confidence in the position through my own ability. Our government is not designed to work with a great deal of autonomy, ideally. Separation of powers is exactly the largest reason why, despite any ancillary narrative or partisan punditry, the responsibility to self-govern as a nation will never really be as far removed from us as it appears (even with the very real and ominous specter of massive amounts of capital's headlong incursion into politics in the last few years). If there is one maddeningly consistent remnant of the George W. Bush presidency, it is this idea of autonomy and unilateralism in the federal government. The irony is that while much of what occurred during Bush 43's presidency can be attributed solely to his administration, there still had to be tacit or coerced approval and support from all corners of the government to facilitate it. It seems too easy to forget or misremember how President Bush went out of his way to get constitutional lawyers to reinterpret the constitution that so many feel is being shredded by his successor, and not so much as a peep was raised by those who now, through President Obama's term, have the ability to discern and report on all of the things the NDAA "created" and "imposed" on the American people. There has been much more transparency in this administration than the last one, overall. President Obama was barely in office a month before he told all of us just how much of an economic hole we were in in the budget report. And I cannot believe that there are people who contend that there is irresponsibility with President Obama, in respect to foreign policy in this instance, and gave what amounted to carte blanche to President Bush's "leadership" in this area? There was, for almost the entirety of the Bush Administration's tenure, a spoken and unspoken rule that any suggestion of "transparency" was tantamount to treason. "Tarring and Feathering" for the 21st century. No wonder there's been such a clarion call for "original intent" regarding the Constitution. This line of thinking against President Obama's "leadership" lends itself to Reince Preibus' assessment of political "messaging" in this day and age: "...it's not what you say, but HOW you say it..." The government, at the end of the day, has to govern in the moment, and not exclusively through any ideological lens that gives more credence to platitudes and rhetoric than actual actions and consequences. We are not any time soon recovering materially or "spiritually" from what happened during Bush 43rd's presidency. But I also don't particularly mind a desire to hold President Obama's feet to the fire as a consequence of the previous administration's errors. "Blame" and "responsibility" are two sides of the same coin, to me. And I've found that personally, I am not as concerned with whose "fault" all this is... ...as I am with who is doing what they can, now, in this moment in time we have, to at the very least, address these problems honestly and soberly. If our international standing in the world is shaken for a few years, we deserve that for abdicating so much of our responsibility to be better than the problems we face to those who favored expediency and narrow-mindedness to discernment and honor.
^^ good grief, man. If Obama could learn to reach across the aisle he could get things done. He's shown that he's COMPLETELY unwilling and unable to do that. Liberals will cry on and on about congress, but Obama hasn't made the effort.
Again, it's not what you say, but how you say it, right? Nobody "across the aisle" hesitated to hang trillions of dollars of debt on President Obama's neck, or drag their feet on any legislation that might have begun to repair an eviscerated economy long enough to give any legs to the idea of "blaming" our economic woes on him. I find no intellectual honesty or sincerity in criticizing how President Obama says things, and defending the behavior of those who, by your account, should know better. You know I'm black and from the ghetto, so you probably already know this... ...but where I come from, we had a word for people who picked fights and complained about getting hit... ...and even though this is the internet...I'm compelled by my own moral authority to not repeat it in good or bad company. Here's a hint, though... ...it rhymes with "...itch..."
look pal if all you can do is call people cuss words, then you've lost the argument. Stick to fact, logic and reason. and quit making excuses for Obama. Sounds like you might need the same course Obama does: Accountability 101
Yeah, I do. I'll give you a copy of my performance review as evidence of my passing that accountability test of yours. Nobody's going to NOT blame President Obama for anything that they want to blame him for. Sticks and stones, as far as I'm concerned. So there's no "argument" to be won there. You think the President is a poor one. You've consistently stated that. Nothing on this planet would change your mind, and that's neither here nor there. You're big on saying what history will judge. We'll see.
This post highlights one of the major problems with Obama haters: You read an article where the author of the article blames Bush for certain things. Your response? Act as though Obama wrote the words and then use that as justification for criticism. I have seen this type of behavior from right wing fanatics on a wide array of topics. It is insanely annoying, to say the least. If you read an article that cites the Iraq War as being a HUGE mistake that is going to have lasting, real effect on foreign policy and the psyche of the American people, that is not Obama blaming Bush. It is an author telling you how it is.
This is a load of bullsh!t. Obama bent over backwards to try and include the GOP in the process of creating legislation, only to be rejected again and again. Only in the Republican echo chamber could the GOP demean, badmouth, and refuse to work with Obama over and over again and then blame it on Obama. Delusion.
bigpuffery. It's got a nice ring to it. At the next cadre meeting, I'm going to propose we all refer to him as bigpuffery from now until the end of this BBS.
I haven't acted as if Obama said anything. He is responsible for the foreign relations of the United States and has been for 6 years. Those relations are terrible and getting worse. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are listening to what he would like to do about it(per the author who is "telling me how it is"). Is he responsible or not?
