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You have some serious deep rooted racial issues. I am sure you were one of those who said 10 years ago that a black man would never be elected because America is too white and racist. Now that he is elected, you want to pull the race card again because everyone isn't bowing down to him because of his skin color? Again, race issues dude. You CAN look beyond someones skin color. I promise you...you can.
His race cuts both ways. Certainly as a black president he's faced harder opposition than previous presidents of rival party. Given a lot of the rhetoric I don't think there is any doubt that a fair part of that was due to race. At the same time I don't think Obama would've been as big of a phenomena that he was in 2008 without his race. Obama is very capable, intelligent and charismatic but there are many with those same qualities. If he had just been Barry O'Bannon white guy from Chicago everything else being equal I'm not sure he is so successful. I'm going to give Brooks the benefit of the doubt that race isn't playing in his assessment of Obama. For while I think his election is a seminal moment in US history I don't think that makes him great. He did a very good job under trying circumstances but I wouldn't put him up there with the Lincolns, Washington, or Roosevelts. I don't think he accomplished enough or changed the country enough to put him with the greats.
Well, I don't think Brooks is even trying to say he's all that great. He's saying Obama's been very 'presidential' in a way the current crop doesn't look likely to match.
Not really. I just tell it how I see it. Obama would be a more popular and favorited president if he weren't black -- possibly even more successful. That's just a fact. And no, I'm not black.
Historically, all the previous black candidates barely made any noise. He ran on a platform that he was able to sell to the voters and that is how he got elected twice. I will agree that race helped him but maybe not to the extent to which it would tip the scale.
Obama's been the best President since FDR and in 20 years he'll be generally considered to be one of the the top 10 presidents in US history.
well statistically being white is more favorable to a person in all aspects of life so I don't see why not.
Populist anger from both sides are becoming wary of "establishment candidates" who are docked for their polish and lack of candor. For the disillusioned, "crazy" or "radical" are the only indicators of authenticity. Obama wasn't supposed to be a pragmatic center left president, or at least not one voters hoped for 8 years ago in the aftermath of excess financial greed and corruption. This current crop of bozos and stale candidates speaks loudly about the broken primary process that favors extreme and polarizing candidates and also the simmering frustrations among those extremes ala Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Obama weathered through those movements, but he and Congress never really addressed their grievances either.
Considering who he was up against, I don't think being yet another white lawyer senator dudebro would have won him too many favors leading up to the nomination.
There wouldn't be any blacks in that case, so yeah. We'd had the most wartime casualties in a generation, the worst recession since Roosevelt; so somebody who didn't vote for the war, whose husband didn't fail to regulate banks or derivatives, who wasn't running away from tabloid photographers to hide cheating on his terminally ill wife was probably going to win the primary, regardless of whether or not he was the same race as every person who has ever been nominated or elected to the post in every election that has ever happened before or since, and has still gotten votes from black people.
If that were the case then Joe Biden and Chris Dodd would've done better in 2008 than they did. People forget that Hillary Clinton had the longest primary fight in party politics at a time when the parties had been changing the rules against that. They also forget she got more primary votes than anyone else in history with one exception, Barack Obama. Obama was a phenomena where his race did play a role. That isn't to say it was the only issue nor to take away from that he is a very good politician to begin with. If not for Obama I feel pretty confident that Clinton would've won in 2008.
Don't forget that Hillary came in 3rd in Iowa - behind white trial lawyer John Edwards. In a two-way race between Edwards and Hillary, Edwards has a good chance of winning too, because there was a substantial portion of the party that was opposed to Hillary. Edwards - young outsider - is much more a "White Obama" than Dodd/Biden (older, career long politicians) were.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Michelle Obama wrote the sweetest birthday message to the President <a href="https://t.co/etha1crpTg">https://t.co/etha1crpTg</a> <a href="https://t.co/odQoJyadNX">pic.twitter.com/odQoJyadNX</a></p>— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) <a href="https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/761259697844396033">August 4, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Happy 55th Birthday, President Obama! Plenty of good years left after leaving office. I wonder what he will do. Maybe President Clinton can nominate Mr. Obama to the Supreme Court?
In all seriousness, do you think 1) that it's a good idea to have a former President as a SCOTUS Justice? and 2) do you think he could even get confirmed? Would he have to recuse himself from any cases involving laws he signed into office? Has anyone besides Taft held both offices? For some reason, just thinking of this makes me want to go home and break out The Brethren.
I don't really think I will miss Obama that much and hope he fails on his legacy plan to pass the TPP. That might change if neo-con light Hillary sends ground troops to get us mired down in Syria and or uses air power to topple Damascus and Assad therebye creating even more of a terrorist haven and more refugees. I might miss Obama if Hillary does a full scale cold war buildup in Europe to confront a non-existent Russian threat to overrun Europe. What a colossal waste of our money it would be, and the resulting "defense" jobs will not be worth it. I am hopeful that Bernie has shown Hillary which way the wind is blowing and she will therefore push for $15/hr. minimum wage, free tuition, and medicare for all even if it costs the billionaire class some of their excess spending money. Of course I will miss them both if Crazy Trump wins.
Only sorta on topic... the WH official photographer and some very good and touching photos of the president: http://twistedsifter.com/2016/07/pete-souza-white-house-photog-favorite-obama-photos/
