It's an estimable first year for our new guy.

[NYC_SKP]

But a lot of people are going to disagree, they're going to call Obama a corporatist warmonger.

They think they're "his base", which is so wrong that I have to laugh to keep from crying.

They think, like Rush Limbaugh, et al, that the Brown win was proof of failure of the administration.

Some even think that it's their fault that Brown won (for not pushing Obama harder for progressive ideals).

The truth is that the base is made up of people like the family that runs the independent grocery store down the street.

And the guys who mounted my tires today and aligned my front end.

And the school teachers I had to email today.

Obama has done a great deal in this one year, Maddow had a great piece on it a week or two back.

The president, in this first of four years, did just what I'd expected, but not the things some others had hoped for.

He did not start off from the left, pushing from the gate for the most progressive objectives, making enemies of the center and the right, and setting up his next three years for failure.

He did not do that.

He started by giving bipartisanship a chance (even if he didn't expect results) so that he can't be painted into a corner.

He gave the 60 Democrats in the senate a chance to behave like Democrats, (even if he didn't expect them to), and they failed.

We are all richer for this first year strategy, the president's point of departure.

We are the wiser, he is the stronger, and getting these many (though not everyone's favorite) things done is better by far...

...than having tried and failed in year one to pass ambitious progressive policies that would have made him a laughing stock.

:rantoff:

:donut:

:patriot:

[sendero]

1. LOL...

... if that's estimable I'd hate to see insipid or even malignant.

Not buying it, not any of it.

[BlueIdaho]

2. Interesting but ask Obama if he'd like a do-over for his first year in office.

I'll bet he'd leap at the chance. I believe our President is smart enough not to believe his own press clippings.

[NYC_SKP]

5. Name one president who wouldn't want a year one do-over.

Except president Cheney, who's probably quite happy with the carnage he started and continued.

[BlueIdaho]

8. Don't change the subject.

Listen - I don't see the President as a warmonger corporate whore, but also refuse to swallow the WH spin. Obama is a grown up. He knows he screwed up health care by leaving it to congress and he also knows he ends this year far weaker politically than he started it. If its true he really didn't see the possibility of this special election loss and understand its chilling impact on the future of his legislative agenda then he's doomed to serve one term - a footnote in history.

I hope like hell I'm wrong but he, and we as Democratics are ill served by those who choose swallow the stereotypes and ignore the trends that are developing.

[NYC_SKP]

10. I honestly don't know how he could have made congress behave much differently.

But I'll agree that he could have come out more strongly, and stayed more focused on, the public option.

Would it have made the difference, would it have changed the minds of enough members?

I'm afraid it wouldn't have.

I'm afraid that we'd still have the patchwork of half-measures and bad measures that it's turned out to be.

[BlueIdaho]

11. He should and could have provided much stronger leadership.

Congress dillydallied - hemmed and hawed - and worse yet individual congress members were allowed to posture endlessly before the camera making impossible demands to guarantee their time in the spotlight. There was never a political price to pay for slow walking legislation. Sadly, the President sat idly by insisting this was Congress's problem to solve. If he is to be successful he needs to be willing to get bloody to make life better for ordinary Americans - not bankers, not insurance companies executives - not military/industrial corporate fat cats. Sadly his first year will not be remembered for change - but for the continuation to too many policies and too many people from the previous administration.

[obliviously]

3. I'll have what your taking!

[Truth2Tell]

4. ...

[leftstreet]

6. 'We are all richer for this first year strategy' WTF? n/t

[NYC_SKP]

7. The first year of a four year term.

If this was the end of his term, I'd agree that he'd have failed miserably.

But it's the first of four years.

I shouldn't really need to go over this again, but I'll say this:

We had a majority of D's but not of Democrats.

And, like the Congress, the population is not made up of progressives.

I think Obama will get there, get as far as congress will let them, if we help, but it will always and necessarily be short of everything we would like it to be.

Year one.

Three to go.

Or seven.

How would you do your first year, go all progressive and fail with 95% of it???

[emilyg]

12. That one made me laugh.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. There was a strategy?

Man, I must be way to stupid to get it.

Nine level chess, right?

Gimme a fukkin break.

[ddeclue]

13. THREAD FAIL!

[democracy1st]

14. LOL ...Goldman Sachs admin!

[Obamanaut]

15. And the girls got a puppy. nt

[Maghetti]

16. the thing is...

It is not what he has done so far or hasn't done so far, its what he said he was going to do, and then directly did the opposite.

[Gravel Democrat]

17. "...the base is made up of people like..."

You wrote:
"The truth is that the base is made up of people like the family that runs the independent grocery store down the street.
And the guys who mounted my tires today and aligned my front end.
And the school teachers I had to email today."

Obama has done a great deal in this one year,
*********

What has Obama done for any of the people mentioned above?

These are the people that feel left behind while the Change Administration
give billions to banks and wall street. As they and their peers are losing jobs
because Chinese laborers will work for $1/day, and somehow tariffs are verboten.

These are the people that will, under the Obama Health Insurance Reform,
have to provide proof of "acceptable insurance" to the IRS when they
file their 1040's. And if times are tough, and they can't afford it
they will have to pay a fine. Subsidies are tax credits.
This doesn't help the worker down on their luck like many are in hard times.

Wouldn't it have made more sense for the Obama administration to have
given FIRST priority to Job creation, rather than force people to purchase
a product from a for profit corporation? After all, he campaigned against such
a thing.

Am I the only one that is dumbfounded as to how some Democrats are simply
*obsessed* with this insurance thing? Why is that? How did health insurance
reform become *all about, all the time* INSURANCE????

What a clusterfrack

There is a reason very few "mainstream media" ask about this, and there is a reason
that no major news org has asked where the Federal Government gets the authority
to mandate a citizen buy a corporate product. Do the people that have no problem with
this outrageous power grab think that the Feds can do anything they want with 60+ votes?

Really? and they would be fine with a (R) doing the same?

Something really really stinks here.Over time, the truth will be told.
I hope I'm around to hear it.

[gleaner]

18. He made himself into the finest ....

Republican that he could within the first six months. He is now making himself a fine proponent of torture, extraordinary renditions, unlawful imprisonment, and has wars going on four fronts by last count. Shhhhh. The ones in Pakistan and Yemen are supposed to be secret, but then you know how people who are being exposed to military force and intelligence abuses just can't keep quiet.:sarcasm:


Another accomplishment of his first year was to make the people who voted for him and supported him and had high hopes for him so angry that I doubt that they will ever support him again. I won't. He made himself into a laughing stock. George Bush's friend and protector. The champion of the rich and infamous.

No, he didn't make enemies of the right, he embraced the right and walked their walk with them. He rejected the rest of us, and one day he will find out just how much contempt the right has for him if he doesn't already know. They have made it manifest and apparent by their threats against him and their mockery.

Do us both a favor. Don't had me a bunch of fables and stitched together delusions and expect me to buy it. Your guy, not my guy, but your guy hasn't done much at all for this country and the majority of the people who live in it. And all those working people you cite who service you every day? How the hell are they better off being shoved off the continent while Obama hands it to the rich?