Let's do a little exercise:
"President Obama is wrong for this country because..." - You finish the sentence, paragraph, or paper.
The rules of this game are only three and very simple.
First, If you decide to answer, you must address the policies and decisions actually made by the President. You may not talk about wildly generalized or speculative concepts such as Socialism, his birth date, his place of birth, or any other distraction issue not related to what he is DOING (or not doing) for America as President of the United States.
Second, be specific. No generalities. I don't want people repeating the favorite pundit's catch-phrases from media playbooks used against every Democrat from Carter on forward and calling it good. "He spends too much","He hates business","He's ruining our military." These wildly generalized claims all beg for support. Address specific uses of executive power by the president related to his term so far.
Third, if after the first two rules you're still hungry for a piece of 'Yes we Can', I'm going to insist that you back up your claims about his wrongness. Don't worry, this isn't a research requirement. I won't force you to explain, for example, the economics of tax cuts v. government programs for economic stimulus during times of recession, but I do want to hear a 'because' after any point attacking his performance. The 'because' needs only be a brief statement of what you think should have been done, or what motivates your opposition to the President's policy. One last thing about your because: It can't be about his motivation. Nobody, friend or foe, is in a position to really talk about why President Obama acts - it's wild speculation that only serves to undermine the facts.
If you agree to my above rules and give this a shot, a few things may become evident. First, it's quite possible you don't really KNOW what President Obama has done. Don't panic, neither did I. Despite being a fervent supporter and political commentator, I only really knew the major decisions covered in the news. Second, if you are being honest with yourself, you may find that when you take a look at his actual decisions, President Obama's actions in office have been remarkably moderate. In fact many of his decisions are downright conservative: tax cuts, increases in military spending, and cutbacks in government programs. Granted, they're not what the Republicans would have done and didn't go as far as they probably would have, but it does get to be harder to vehemently criticize this president when the actual work he's done is a far cry from what many would describe as a 'liberal agenda'.
Yet the vehemence against President Obama after two years cannot be ignored, nor should it. However it should be understood for what it is. The American people are under an extraordinary amount of stress these days. We are in a long period of economic stagnation with high unemployment in a protracted overseas war after a disastrous economic collapse followed by a ecological crisis of global proportions.
People are mad as hell. They feel powerless. They want and feel they need someone to blame or something to take action against. It is our natural reaction when frustrated by things outside our control to look to those in power and hold them as the concrete focal point for our diffuse frustration and rage. President Obama inherited an economy in freefall, destroyed by the sub-prime crisis that infected Wall Street and cascaded to every corner of our economic reality. The waves of this financial destruction were already rippling outward as he took office. As a result, he also inherited the consequence of that collapse including the psychological backlash as people watched their savings, their homes, and their futures collapse around them.
So the anger and the low opinion polls are no surprise. However if you read this blog, you're probably a touch more thoughtful than the average bear (like how I plugged my readers there?). This means it pays to step back from any president and ask this question: What have they actually done? What decisions were actually made despite the party that got them there? When my liberal friends hear me say that George W. Bush was correct in passing his tax cuts currently under review, they explode into normal liberal rhetoric. I wait it out, then point out that the Bush tax cuts were passed pre-911 when the government was running at a surplus at the end of the Clinton years and such cuts made sense to EVERYONE in that environment. The president of the other party doesn't always do the wrong thing.
So go ahead. Take some time to look at what President Obama has actually done. There are lot of lists out there - avoid the clearly biased ones on either side. When you get done, think for a moment about whether he's really the liberal enemy of all things American as Faux News would suggest or if maybe the whole thing is just a little overblown; That President Obama is moderate president among moderates and his actions may actually be doing a great deal more for conservative interests as well as the progressive ones.
The economic chaos of today's America was inevitable after the sub prime collapse. Whomever held office after 2008 was going to catch hell. It is up to us to hold the president accountable for the decisions actually made and speak up against accusations against him that lack that foundation.
So tell me.
Why is Obama wrong for America?
"President Obama is wrong for this country because..." - You finish the sentence, paragraph, or paper.
The rules of this game are only three and very simple.
First, If you decide to answer, you must address the policies and decisions actually made by the President. You may not talk about wildly generalized or speculative concepts such as Socialism, his birth date, his place of birth, or any other distraction issue not related to what he is DOING (or not doing) for America as President of the United States.
Second, be specific. No generalities. I don't want people repeating the favorite pundit's catch-phrases from media playbooks used against every Democrat from Carter on forward and calling it good. "He spends too much","He hates business","He's ruining our military." These wildly generalized claims all beg for support. Address specific uses of executive power by the president related to his term so far.
Third, if after the first two rules you're still hungry for a piece of 'Yes we Can', I'm going to insist that you back up your claims about his wrongness. Don't worry, this isn't a research requirement. I won't force you to explain, for example, the economics of tax cuts v. government programs for economic stimulus during times of recession, but I do want to hear a 'because' after any point attacking his performance. The 'because' needs only be a brief statement of what you think should have been done, or what motivates your opposition to the President's policy. One last thing about your because: It can't be about his motivation. Nobody, friend or foe, is in a position to really talk about why President Obama acts - it's wild speculation that only serves to undermine the facts.
If you agree to my above rules and give this a shot, a few things may become evident. First, it's quite possible you don't really KNOW what President Obama has done. Don't panic, neither did I. Despite being a fervent supporter and political commentator, I only really knew the major decisions covered in the news. Second, if you are being honest with yourself, you may find that when you take a look at his actual decisions, President Obama's actions in office have been remarkably moderate. In fact many of his decisions are downright conservative: tax cuts, increases in military spending, and cutbacks in government programs. Granted, they're not what the Republicans would have done and didn't go as far as they probably would have, but it does get to be harder to vehemently criticize this president when the actual work he's done is a far cry from what many would describe as a 'liberal agenda'.
Yet the vehemence against President Obama after two years cannot be ignored, nor should it. However it should be understood for what it is. The American people are under an extraordinary amount of stress these days. We are in a long period of economic stagnation with high unemployment in a protracted overseas war after a disastrous economic collapse followed by a ecological crisis of global proportions.
People are mad as hell. They feel powerless. They want and feel they need someone to blame or something to take action against. It is our natural reaction when frustrated by things outside our control to look to those in power and hold them as the concrete focal point for our diffuse frustration and rage. President Obama inherited an economy in freefall, destroyed by the sub-prime crisis that infected Wall Street and cascaded to every corner of our economic reality. The waves of this financial destruction were already rippling outward as he took office. As a result, he also inherited the consequence of that collapse including the psychological backlash as people watched their savings, their homes, and their futures collapse around them.
So the anger and the low opinion polls are no surprise. However if you read this blog, you're probably a touch more thoughtful than the average bear (like how I plugged my readers there?). This means it pays to step back from any president and ask this question: What have they actually done? What decisions were actually made despite the party that got them there? When my liberal friends hear me say that George W. Bush was correct in passing his tax cuts currently under review, they explode into normal liberal rhetoric. I wait it out, then point out that the Bush tax cuts were passed pre-911 when the government was running at a surplus at the end of the Clinton years and such cuts made sense to EVERYONE in that environment. The president of the other party doesn't always do the wrong thing.
So go ahead. Take some time to look at what President Obama has actually done. There are lot of lists out there - avoid the clearly biased ones on either side. When you get done, think for a moment about whether he's really the liberal enemy of all things American as Faux News would suggest or if maybe the whole thing is just a little overblown; That President Obama is moderate president among moderates and his actions may actually be doing a great deal more for conservative interests as well as the progressive ones.
The economic chaos of today's America was inevitable after the sub prime collapse. Whomever held office after 2008 was going to catch hell. It is up to us to hold the president accountable for the decisions actually made and speak up against accusations against him that lack that foundation.
So tell me.
Why is Obama wrong for America?
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