That he created. Awesome. You know, it's the WINNERS who get to write history, not the WHINERS. Obviously, it's difficult to tell at this point. I do agree that the partisan gridlock will be remembered as it's been an offensive display of how incapable our government can be when cooperation is removed and partisanship placed above reason or consequence.... and only time will tell if ACA turns out to be successful or not.... but as someone who did not vote for him...
I don't care where he went to school. That stops mattering after about age 30, when you have enough career to stand on its own. and he's half white / half black, just to clarify. (also the thought that I'm only a "manager" is hilarious)
No one after H W Bush should rank above 19 or below 25. H W Bush prevented Hussein from controlling a third of global oil reserves and tried to balance the budget; but like Eisenhower he was completely out of touch on social issues and boomers had to take over eventually. Clinton cared as much about the deficit as H W Bush did and compromised on welfare reform; but he was a Yale law grad who lied in federal court. W Bush should probably rank the lowest of the group; despite having the biggest foreign policy challenge he bungled it as much as possible, didn't cover it fiscally and failed to regulate banks and preempt a man-made global recession. Obama has sacrificed a congressional majority and any hope of fiscal sanity for the sake of health care legislation.
People will remember the battles he fought with the Republicans - an extraordinary time of the Tea Party bringing a nation to its knees to meet the needs of a handful of very wealthy donors. I think it will be huge in our countries history and may challenge the ideas of whether our democracy is suited for the 21st century and beyond.
I suspect history will be very kind to Obama at least 30-40 years from now. He was the first non white President, which in itself will make him an icon with the rapidly changing demographics of young America. The man is a rock star with school age children. There are numerous books, including children's books in public school libraries. Further he has addressed school children and I have noted a number of school teachers have pushed his image. There is a whole generation if children with a very positive opinion of Obama that will carry over into adulth
History tends to favor the warmongers. As time goes by, the emotional immediacy of maimed and dead young men fades away, and you are left with a skewed outlook. I used to love Teddy Roosevelt, until I started to think what it would be like to actually live in the USA with him as the President. I think Obama will be forever tied to W as the reaction to W and the back end of Afghanistan and Iraq, the way that you can't talk about FDR's first term and the Great Depression without talking about "Hoovervilles" and Herbert Hoover's inaction.
so the only people who like him have the minds of children? sounds about right. Maybe those are the 38% who approve of him
I am curious but what did you not like about Teddy Roosevelt? He busted monopolies, started the national park system, and improved food regulations. He wasn't perfect but as US Presidents go I would put him in the top quarter.
You know, I've been reading your nonsense for a while now, and you are one of those who really needs to read the following and let it sink in: To make a statement or to sound an alarm. Yeah: “****’s going wrong. Here’s where I think it’s going wrong. Here’s what I think might make it right.” That impulse was the same in The Wire writing room as it would be at the editorial board of a good newspaper. “Good” being the operative word there. I don’t want to reduce The Wire to one big theme, but would you say that a major thrust of the series was the idea of institutions versus individuals? Yeah, that permeated it. One of the things we were saying was that reform was becoming more and more problematic as moneyed interests—capitalism, which is sort of the ultimate Olympian god—become more entrenched in the postmodern world. Reform becomes more and more problematic because the status quo is arranged in such a way as to maximize profit and to exalt profit—particularly short-term profit—over long-term societal benefit and/or human beings. Which is kind of the classic problem that comes up with capitalism and industry. But I’m not a Marxist. I am often mistaken for a Marxist. Oh, no, I wouldn’t guess that about you. I think of you as being, besides a writer, more of a critic and an observer. It’s one thing to recognize capitalism for the powerful economic tool it is and to acknowledge that, for better or for worse, we’re stuck with it and, hey, thank God we have it. There’s not a lot else that can produce mass wealth with the dexterity that capitalism can. But to mistake it for a social framework is an incredible intellectual corruption and it’s one that the West has accepted as a given since 1980—since Reagan. Human beings—in this country in particular—are worth less and less. When capitalism triumphs unequivocally, labor is diminished. It’s a zero-sum game. People paid a much higher tax rate when Eisenhower was president, a much higher tax rate for the benefit of society, and all of us had more of a sense that we were included. But this is not what you really want to talk about, I know. Well, no, I do want to talk about this. It isn’t technically about writing, but it’s very relevant to your writing. I guess what I’m saying is that the overall theme was: We’ve given ourselves over to the Olympian god that is capitalism and now we’re reaping the whirlwind. This is the America that unencumbered capitalism has built. It’s the America that we deserve because we let it happen. We don’t deserve anything better. The Wire was trying to take the scales from people’s eyes and say, “This is what you’ve built. Take a look at it.” It’s an accurate portrayal of the problems inherent in American cities. Absolutely. Are there other parts of those cities that are economically viable? Of course. You can climb higher up on the pyramid that is capitalism and find the upper-middle-class neighborhoods and the private schools. You can find where the money went. But The Wire was dissent because of its choice to center itself on the other America, the one that got left behind. That was the overall theme and that worked for all five seasons. So that’s the institution versus the individual. It seems that wrapping up these commentaries on American society within fictions might be the only way to get a lot of people to engage with problems like poverty and drugs and the disappearance of industry. Have you seen the messages in The Wire resonate for viewers beyond the level of entertainment? No. I think that some people got it and they may react differently the next time some ****-spitting politician shows up to say that with a little bit more of a business base and more cops and more lawyers we can win the war on drugs. There may be a little bit more dissent on some of the points we hit the hardest. But I don’t believe that a television show or, for that matter, even the systemic efforts of journalism can change the dynamic. Not even very good journalism, of which there is less and less. Why does reform seem so impossible? We live in an oligarchy. The mother’s milk of American politics is money, and the reason they can’t reform financing, the reason that we can’t have public funding of elections rather than private donations, the reason that K Street is K Street in Washington, is to make sure that no popular sentiment survives. You’re witnessing it now with health care, with the marginalization of any effort to rationally incorporate all Americans under a national banner that says, “We’re in this together.” But then the critics of a system like that immediately cry socialism. And of course it’s socialism. These ignorant mother****ers. What do they think group insurance is, other than socialism? Just the idea of buying group insurance! If socialism is a taint that you cannot abide by, then, ******* it, you shouldn’t be in any group insurance policy. You should just go out and pay the ****ing doctors because when you get 100,000 people together as part of anything, from a union to the AARP, and you say, “Because we have this group actuarially, more of us are going to be healthier than not and therefore we’ll be able to carry forward the idea of group insurance and everybody will have an affordable plan...” That’s ****in’ socialism. That’s nothing but socialism. It is, literally. So the whole idea of group insurance, which of course everyone believes in, like that fellow on YouTube, “Don’t let the government take away my Medicare…” You look at that and you think there’s only one thing that can make people this stupid, and that’s money. When you pay people to change their votes on the basis of money, the wrong **** gets voted for. That’s American democracy at this point. And you get to the Senate and you’re looking at 100 votes, which don’t represent anything in terms of popular representation. When 40 percent of the population controls 60 percent of the votes in the higher house of a bicameral legislature, it’s an oligarchy. I’m getting depressed. Now you’re listening to Joe Lieberman say that he will filibuster anything with a public option. Let me understand this: One guy from a small state in New England is going to decide on a singular basis what’s good for the health care of 300 million people? That’s our form of government, and I don’t get it. It’s not good. Well, it is what it is and it has been for years, and it’s why we’re able to marginalize larger and larger percentages of our population. **** ’em where they stand. Five percent, 10 percent, 15 percent. How many people are you going to keep out of the gated community? How many guards are you going hire? The guards will be the only working-class people in the gated communities, I guess. Right. You’re going to hire people to guard your ****, but you’re not going to give them health care.
In all fairness, people like you, as well as people who put Obama in the top 5, have little to no objectivity whatsoever. Unless something were to happen in the next 3 years (which is why all of this talk is premature), he's not going to be ranked in the bottom 10, or even 20 for that matter, now matter how much it kills Obama-haters to hear that. It's just not going to happen. Just like Reagan is never going to be ranked below the top 20- and in many polls, he's going to make the top 10, no matter how much liberals hate to hear that.
Its impossible for any of us sitting in the present to say where he will end up. But I can say as a conservative he makes me long for the days of Bill Clinton. And I really disliked Clinton.
I am curious why? Obama in personality is different than Clinton but governance isn't all that different from Clinton. Obama was able to get a health care plan passed, one that is far more market based than the Clinton plan, but otherwise has pretty much run a centrist government with a moderately interventionist foreign policy. Pretty much the same as Clinton.
Clinton worked with republicans instead of completely shutting them out. He was actually concerned with passing balanced budgets instead of paying lip service to them. He passed welfare reform. He (for the most part) stayed out of foreign entanglements and we had the respect of the world as he was a respected leader. He didn't consistently blame his predecessor for problems he was encountering. Shall I go on?
