Obama's Conversion to Job Creation (After 12 Months), Sadly Looks Like He's Trying to Save His Own.

[David Zephyr]

I'm sorry. I'm not going to be all "team player" here. This President screwed up a historic moment in time and pissed away all his political capital and good will with the American People last year. His sudden, born-again conversion to talking about job creation and dealing with residential real estate crisis just sounds phony.

His new head-turning conversion to caring about jobs and foreclosures sounds more like a deathbed conversion than an actual one. Actually, after Massachusetts, it pretty much is a deathbed conversion.

Right or wrong, the perception that Obama blew the first 25% of his Presidency is one that is congealed now within the American psyche: Obama ignored the plight of the struggling working class and the unemployed and the housing catastrophe, while he nursed Wall Street, threw billions at banking criminals and sent even more American young people into wars overseas.

As a Democrat, I am already cringing at knowing how hollow his speech Wednesday night is going to sound. I plan on having two Martinis before I watch him. I only hope that after he's turned his head left to right and then back left again as he makes his speech from the teleprompter, that he doesn't make any more foolish assertions like, "I may not be the first President to tackle health care, but I will be the last!" And, someone please get a message to his speech writers to drop that ridiculous and overused phrase of "Make no mistake about it" from his language. If I grind my teeth anymore I will have to get dentures.

Still, I'm nearly on my knees in gratitude that finally, after 12 months, someone in that tone-deaf White House figured out that real people with real families want jobs and job security and they want to be able to continue living in their homes. Ahem...those would be the people that elected Obama.

Unfortunately, it's just that now, when Obama talks about saving jobs, after one long excruciating year of neglect, it sounds like the job he wants to save is his own. And the American People don't want to hear him talking about jobs, they expect him to deliver jobs. Money talks and bullshit walks.

The missed opportunity of his first year is Shakespearean it's so tragic.

Can he turn this around now? I am not sure he can. His fall with the approval of the American People is eyebrow raising. Trust is something earned. Earned.

Although it will never happen, President Obama should look the American People in the eye in his national address and square it with them, and own up to the clearly mistaken priorities his first 12 months. If he doesn't, if he tries to just gloss it over with self-excusing shit like "we've made progress, but I'm not happy with it", then his speech will be, as they say in Texas, a turd in the punchbowl.

Obama has blown it. He should man up and acknowledge it publicly, and then get to work like hell to create jobs. Any thing less, he will look like just another smooth-talking politician in a suit...and his sacred bond of trust with the American people, already damaged, will only suffer more.

OK, OK. I will go all "team player" after all. Why? Because Obama's wasted first year has hurt not just hurt his own credibility, but that of our Democratic Team in the Congress. Democrats in the House took Obama at his word, followed his priorites and now those House Members are in real trouble this November as they all face re-election in a very hostile political environment.

Our team took one for their leader all last year. They followed his lead. Now, the leader should take this one for the team on Wednesday night and acknowledge his failure and misplaced priorites as those of his own making, not the team's.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tridim]

2. It still amazes me that so many "Democrats" don't know that.

Yet those same "Democrats" claim that Obama single-handedly bailed out AIG before he was in office.

:crazy:

[anonymous171]

3. OMG He signed a bill that had a cool sounding name in his first term

That's more than FDR ever did.

[timeforpeace]

9. In the first MONTH of his term. And American Recovery ensued.

[Donnachaidh]

57. recovery? Really? WHERE? I mean besides the board rooms of the banks

We're seeing more homeless in my area EVERY DAY. You cannot even get into the Unemployment offices parking lot -- it's FULL, EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Recovery has NOT happened.

[closeupready]

60. And housing sales fell 14% in December alone. That's not indicative of a recovery.

n/t

[AndyA]

5. And unemployment went much higher than they predicted.

But they didn't react to that.

Unemployment is still high, people are losing patience. Obama and his advisors knew they had a limited time to fix the jobs situation. Yet they made no adjustments for the newer data that showed the situation was getting much worse.

Lack of jobs is still an issue, almost a year after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Not enough. Now he's doing damage control but he waited too long.

[Zynx]

15. Considering that the bill's size was curtailed because of deficit concerns, what should the

response have been? Saying that we want more jobs?

[AndyA]

18. Yeah, because saying it makes it so.

:eyes:

If you want a real answer to your silly question, there are many respected economists who suggested such a thing. Bing is your friend.

[Zynx]

20. You obviously didn't detect my sarcasm so I will have to spell it out for you.

I apologize in advance for being ill mannered, but a dismissive eye-roll smiley warrants it.

My point was that Congress wasn't passing anything larger than it did. It was like pulling teeth to get what we got. Whatever economists want is irrelevant when Congress does not have the will and for that matter neither does the public. Have you seen the numbers about deficit concerns? Yes, the bill should have been $1.5 trillion over two years instead of $787 billion over five or so. However, good fucking luck ever getting that passed. It wasn't happening. When Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins drew their line at $800 billion and Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu said similar things we couldn't do much about it.

As for my comment about saying that we care about job growth, that's pretty much all he can do at this moment. Since you were so eager to make a glib, dismissive statement you missed obvious sarcasm. I feel sorry for you when you watch comedy.

Btw, I still use Google. Bing is a cheap imitation. However, I am going to assume you were joking about Bing.

[bbinacan]

7. Yep, we

see how well that turned out.

[tridim]

11. So you would have preferred a second great depression?

Are you fucking kidding me?

[Zynx]

16. Compared to its absence, it worked quite well.

[Winterblues]

19. We were losing six hundred thousand jobs a month before that.

How many were lost last month. Two months ago we actually gained jobs..I guess that means nothing to you....Did you think it was going to all of a sudden overnight be paradise? Republicans put America in a bind so bad it is going to take more than a few days to recoup.. If you look at history at all you will see there is a huge difference betwen how Republican Administrations and Democratic Administration effect the economy.. Obama's Administration is proving no different than other Democratic Administrations when it comes to economics. America ALWAYS does better under Democratic Administrations...ALWAYS and it is doing better under Obama than it has for eight years..

[undeterred]

31. No we did not actually gain jobs.

We are still losing over 400,000 jobs a month. People are still being laid off and not finding a new job a year later.

[David Zephyr]

40. And, they are angry, too.

Thanks for keeping it real.

[undeterred]

42. 8 months out for me

No job on the horizon, unemployment comp running out. And I don't expect that there will be anything to help me coming up in Obama's speech this week.

[David Zephyr]

45. Hey, how 'bout another year of talking about healthcare?'

I simply can not believe how detached Obama was and failed to see how hard it is out here right now, how friggin' painful it is for Americans, single or in families.

Obama needs to stretch unemployment benefits out again and put forth a bold and clear program to create millions of good, new jobs in the private sector.

[undeterred]

51. The Cobra extension was good...

if you signed up for it in the first place, which I didn't. I really wasn't expecting miracles from the federal government (like the move to single payer) but this is the area where bipartisanship was a total waste of time. The Republicans are dead set against health care reform and have never wavered on that. There's no competition and insurance prices keep going up. Basically Obama has squandered precious time to reign in an out of control system.

[ProSense]

4. Have you found that 2012 candidate yet?

Exclusive: Obama stimulus reduced our pain, experts say

Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December's 10% rate — without Obama's $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists' median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs

Does anyone remember that the House passed a jobs bill in December

[DJ13]

8. Beware the spin when "experts say"

[ProSense]

10. Beware advice from people who are advocating that you should lose. n/t

[EFerrari]

12. You conflate party candidates with party voters.

Obama won because we made that happen. Most of us are still waiting to see the win.

[ProSense]

13. "Most of us are still waiting to see the win."

Some people gave up on Obama last spring, and some have taken to advocating that he be primaried.

[EFerrari]

56. I guess I must be slow then.

lol

:)

[David Zephyr]

17. Well said.

!

[grantcart]

22. It doesn't matter who the candidate is the poster is on record supporting

any alternative to the President.

[David Zephyr]

29. Most dishonest of you.

I am on record supporting a primary challenge from the Left to Obama in 2012. That's not "any alternative".

[grantcart]

39. and you get a gold star for being first, and announcing before any

politician on the left said that they would consider such a challenge. but there it is ANY challenger from the left will recieve your support, the only qualifying criteria being that they measure up on some ideological meter as being left of Obama.

Two silver stars for announcing before the first year was up.

Now exactly how does that make you a team player?

You do realize that righteous angry prophet is not consistent with team player?

[David Zephyr]

48. I'll take that as an apology and correction.

No prophet, by the way.

Obama should just be the Obama he said he would be. He could actually wind up being the primary challenge from the Left himself to the promise breaker and corporate water carrier he wasted no time in becoming. Imagine that.

[laughingliberal]

32. No. Hope we don't need to look for one

Exclusive: Obama Would 'Rather Be Really Good One-Term President'
Obama Tells Diane Sawyer That Health Care Bill Had Political Cost

resident Obama, buffeted by criticism of his massive health care reform bill and election setbacks, said today he remained determined to tackle health care and other big problems despite the political dangers to his presidency.


The president tells Diane Sawyer about his first term and poll numbers.
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," he told ABC's "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview today.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/president-obama-good-term-president/story?id=9657337

[Nite Owl]

6. That was well said!

It's the trust thing that is most devastating. It's so hard to regain lost trust. I feel pretty much the same, not looking forward to hearing him speak this time. I want him to stop speaking and really listen to us. He's in this bubble listening to a staff that doesn't have a clue. One way to tell us he means it this time is to fire those around him, that appointed, and accept that these are the wrong people to have around him. I won't hold my breath though. I wish I still had the hope but he just isn't the person we were led to believe he was in the campaign.

[Demeter]

14. If It Takes a Threat, So Be It

He said he wanted us to MAKE him do what we want. So we are trying to follow his explicit directions...and you know what? It seems to be effective.

[grantcart]

21. What this post shows is how little grasp of the macro economic situation

you have and how your anti Obama bile has overtaken all ability to analyze historical fact and make sensible statements.


Where we a year ago? Having a little problem with unemployment?


No we were at the abyss. Think "Its a Wonderful Life" and add 12 zeros.


We were in the middle of the largest bank runs in history. The entire economic system was on the verge of complete collapse. Unemployment under a full collapse of the economic system would have reached 30%.


Hyperbole? Not even close. Why were Senators and Congresspeople coming out of meetings ashen faced and not very talkative? Because the country was in a full blown run to take deposits out of the bank.


Let us take a single example, Washington Mutual.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95105112

IM ZARROLI: Regulators had long been keeping an anxious eye on Washington Mutual. The company, which is known as WaMu, had been steadily losing money for nearly a year, more than six billion years dollars in the last three quarters alone. Then, more than a week ago, WaMu began to experience a good old fashioned bank run. John Reich heads the Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates savings and loans.

Mr. JOHN REICH (Office of Thrift Supervision): Beginning about the 15th of September and continuing everyday until through yesterday, the bank experienced a serious run on deposits totaling about $16.7 billion dollars over that nine-day period.

1) The fact that a year later we are talking about the need to increase the stimulus to further accelerate job creation and not trying to resurrect a collapsed financial system is clear evidence that the President's leadership in putting out the fires left by Bush/Cheney has worked. Going out of your way to misunderstand and misstate the reality that the country faced a year ago is not convincing and not the work of a "team player".

2) Your self appointment as the leader of Democrats and the chronicler of the Democrats abandonment of Obama is comical as is your cliched (and bourgeoisie) choice of Martini. The President continues to command huge numbers of support from Democrats and Liberals who support him only second to AA and Hispanics: http://www.gallup.com/poll/121199/Obama-Weekly-Job-Approval-Demographic-Groups.aspx

3) The fact is that the polls show him as the most ideologically divisive President in modern history:



http://www.gallup.com/poll/125345/Obama-Approval-Polarized-First-Year-President.aspx

[David Zephyr]

24. Talk to the hand that has a cue card that says One Year Pissed Away on Healthcare.

Obama's first year was a failure.

Macroeconomics, my ass. He screwed up and everyone except his most doting know so.

[ProSense]

26. Pissed away on health care?

Bogus

The Phantom Policy Conflict

[David Zephyr]

28. Where's that public option that you swore he'd deliver for eight solid months?

crickets....

[ProSense]

30. You're a fool if you were counting on a promise from me. n/t

[David Zephyr]

44. I am no fool. I knew better. I think you did, too even when you posted it.

.

[grantcart]

37. Whether Obama's first year was a failure is a subject that can and will be debated

Your deflecting however on the essential point of my reply and that is your OP is a combination of almost unintelligible mutterings.

Even the rest of the hate Obama crowd cannot save it from being unrecced until oblivion.

Your understanding of history is so ideologically charged that you have become a caricature.

You promote yourself as a team player and at the same time announce that you intend to support a primary opponent sight unseen.

Inconsistent, illogical, without historical foundation your posts have only a single thread, hate for the President which in this case drips in condescending clap trap.

Again your basic premise that the President has been abandoned by the liberal wing of the party is not supported by any polling of any kind and in fact there is hard polling data that shows the President has the most ideological divisive gap of any President.

These are facts.





In your martini induced delusional word facts are not welcomed visitors and indeed require a visa.

[Jennicut]

23. So, should he skip the SOTU speech then?

Since it is so grating to you to hear him speak?
What a bunch of self defeatist bs. If he is willing to listen and change course, then so be it. That is a good thing. What do you want...him to quit? Either he listens to us or he doesn't. Time will tell.

[David Zephyr]

27. Read the OP.

He needs to acknowledge his misplaced priorities that everyone in the nation is aware of and tell the people he's heard from them and learned.

People don't believe him anymore. That's a very big problem. I'm not sure he and the sycophants that surround him get that...yet.

[Jennicut]

35. Oh...he gets it that it is going wrong right now. Why bother to bring

in Elizabeth Warren to the WH or allow Volcker into the inner circle?
I don't see how acknowledging that the shit hit the fan does much but let Rethugs say..."I told you so".
As I have seen here on DU many times....actions speak louder then words.
I fall into a strange category on DU I guess. Not a cheerleader, I can show major disappointment in Obama. But not ready to give up on him yet. Heck, he is all we have for the next 3 years. He better turn some things around or we get stuck with a Rethug, again. It will be his fault but I also believe people can be allowed to change.

[undeterred]

25. And if he says the word "bipartisan" one more time

I'm going to hurl chunks and turn off the television.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

[laughingliberal]

33. right there with you. nt

[David Zephyr]

41. +1

I forgot that one, undeterred. I may need three martinis now.

[uponit7771]

34. Freepers also getting mad at Obama concentrating on jobs

[David Zephyr]

38. Because the GOP wants and will run on jobs in November.

Nancy Pelosi and all the Democrats in the House, with or without Obama, need to have one song from now to November: Job Creation.

If we do this, we can keep this from becoming a Republican mantra. Sadly, we've left this flank open to the GOP. It should have never happened.

[jannyk]

36. kick & rec!!!

[jpak]

43. Yeah, that $700 billion stimulus bill created or saved 0.6 -1.6 million jobs according to the CBO

but we'll ignore that - won't we

:thumbsdown:

[David Zephyr]

46. Created zilch. Saved some.

My OP is about creating new jobs. Not saving some existing government jobs.

"Now back to health care".

[jpak]

49. Horseshit - it created jobs in my town and state - projects and jobs I saw first-hand

Enjoy your fantasies!

:hi:

:rofl:

[NYC_SKP]

47. That assertion stands in start contrast to this Think Progress article:

And it is the kind of post I'd expect to see on this fucking board.

FFS.

Obama: I’d rather be a ‘really good one-term president’ than ‘mediocre two-term president.’

In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer that will be aired tonight, President Obama said he will not back off his agenda despite the political hazards that might lie ahead:

“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president,” he told ABC’s “World News” anchor Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview today. <…>



“You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected. That’s not our job description,” Obama said. “Our job description is to solve problems and to help people.”

Seated across from Sawyer in the White House, the president added, “I don’t want to look back on my time here and say to myself all I was interested in was nurturing my own popularity.”

Read the full transcript here:http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9659064


http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/25/obama-two-terms/

[rusty fender]

62. He sure hasn't shown

any signs of being that "really good one-term president" yet. He better get started.

[stevietheman]

50. I sadly agree. Not much action from this Big Words President.

And I have been a big supporter.

The problem is... how long can I keep supporting him, and starting to look really bad around thoughtful people as long as I do?

Obama really does have to MAN UP, and REALLY FIGHT, NOW.

[dave29]

52. It saddens me so many take you seriously.

That you so obviously want Obama to be humiliated, scorned, publicly shamed, that you so obviously believe he is already a failure... the amount of time you have given him is ridiculous in light of your claims... you discount the bleeding he has stopped, the jobs he has created (and the work he has done from day one) --- and the work he has done other than Health Care. It is a twisted display of partisan nonsense that so many here believe because it taps into a deep cynicism and despicable loathing of anything positive, constructive, or even worthwhile.

I am sorry I read this tripe.

[branders seine]

53. +1

[bridgit]

54. Obama was convinced that the econ needed a quick infusion to keep...

from dropping out the bottom of the bag. But it seems he kept listening to the guys that caused the whole thing. The same tired old Wall Street/Fed Reserve dudes sucking up all that free sweet & creamy WH coffee every time they come by with their tired old excuses for more of the same. More 'only the private sector can create jobs' BS - but too many in the private sector are too scared. They aren't innovators; not anymore, not creative thinkers unless people think finding ways to asses overdraft charges by way of curious keystroke errors; and new fees on ATM cards is fresh & bold

But they won't lay out money for even a good idea without a slam-dunk no-risk 30% return coming back in 90 days

And if, as the private sector and every RW/Libertarian whack-nut always says: the government can't do it, and they, the private sector, is too chick-shit to do it - then someone and it may as well be Obama; needs to start drawing out some lines delineating remedy & responsibility

Americans had to sit here while the market crashed down to what was it? 6,000? Well, not that they cared for all those E-Trade Babies out there having all their cyber-equity flushed away cause you know they were shitting their own pants themselves. Now?

The market is up, commercials are keying back into the E-Trade Babies and financial software that enables regular folks to track those hot-spots, invest 'responsibly', start making money all over again while sitting on their ass and become members of the investor/laser-mouse-based-class. Where the recipients of untracked bailout money would prefer all jobs to remain

I do hear you about his speeches of late, and do wish they'd start flapping some wings, and become a little less pedestrian

[Carolina]

55. excellent post! K&R

[Kaleva]

58. Dems, especially liberal Dems, approve of Obama's job performance.

"His fall with the approval of the American People is eyebrow raising."

Odd that you would consider his drop in approval amongst Republicans to be eyebrow raising.

[whistler162]

59. I hope your nap was nice......

[MadHound]

61. Well it looks like that with this spending freeze his so called focus on job creation

Is just another bullshit broken promise. Hard to create jobs when you're not laying out the money.

Apparently the only jobs Obama is now intent on creating are military ones.