@Game chainsaw: thats always how its worked. The Democrats are more of a loose coalition of various viewpoints. Even Will Rogers once said herding Democrats was like herding cats. As opposed to the Republicans who tend to be a lot better at agreeing commonly on issues.
edited 9th May '11 4:51:20 PM by Midgetsnowman
Why do Americans actually think what happens in the Middle East is particularly relevant to anyone? It's not completely unimportant, but America faces issues in spending, education, and business regulation far more pressing than whether someone in the Middle East gets blown up.
"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."There's a difference between securing resource extraction and "THEY'RE GOING TO KILL US ALL!!!!1111", and American rhetoric about Middle East policy veers toward the latter. Certainly, securing oil is a nice thing, but I just can't think how someone can prioritize that over local stuff (like schools and crime) and overarching economic issues (deficit, education, taxes).
"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."A more appropriate question would be: is he a leader at all? B.Obama or E.Cullen - what are they for you, other than a few glowing pixels and a lot of wishful thinking? Do you call Batman your "leader"? =)
I mean, what's the difference for the viewer between most "political" and "movie" sorts of talking heads in TV? Both sorts are professional actors backed by lots of make-up and pro operators, reciting scripts written in advance by someone else. You understand this, right? The producers can pick up just about anyone who can be trained to make needed faces and remember proper words - it makes very little difference even though some can do this much better than others. A few are good at this, they can improvise and look convincing for people who didn't already turn Willing Suspension of Disbelief to the max. But even on this level... At which point it becomes something more than just a movie? For you?
...And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense - R.W.Wood@Thorn: This brings up my question; how much power does Obama actually have as party leader, let alone as leader of the country? How much influence does he actually hold over the Democrats, how much over the country, and thus, how much can we actually attribute to him and not the incompetence of his fellow politicians?
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Thats certainly a credit to Obama then. The US military and overseas operations seem to be the one place where things are going relatively well, although that is almost certainly wholly down to US commanders and the US militaries strong military tradition rather than the actions of a man sitting in the white house communicating over the phone.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.The guy's the best thing to happen to America if you're looking at it from a non-American viewpoint. Like someone said, he's the guy who made it OK to be friends with America again.
As for whether he's a good leader...I dunno. Depends on what people want in a leader, I guess. He's pretty intelligent, and a lot of his ideas make sense. He does suffer from the apparent lack of decisiveness that usually comes with that package, but from where we're looking, it's clear that he's not having an easy job making his policy ideas a reality thanks to the Republicans' obstructionist stance. If we're playing the blame game, I'd say go for the pompous idiots at the Senate/Congress, coz' if I'm not mistaken, every domestic policy goes through them.
We here in this country I shall not name are having the same problem, by the way. President's a decent guy from what we can see, but our House Of Represantatives is filled with corrupt executives and incompetent trumpet-blowing hardass crazies (I'm not sure if they're pretending about the crazy part or they really are that stupid) whose only policy is "oppose everything the central government tries to do".
Wat
Basically, your argument is 'Obama is good because he has good PR and it's so cool to like him'
"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - BarkeyWell, I can't interpret 'it's OK to be friends with America' again any other way other than the case of good PR versus bad PR.
"Take your (...) hippy dream world, I'll take reality and earning my happiness with my own efforts" - Barkey
Incidentally, I've noticed a tendency in anti-Obama people, including posters here, to have a deep-seated need to paint pro-Obama supporters as blindly loyal followers who can see no wrong in their leader. Whereas more pro-Obama people than not seem to actually hold a stance closer to 'Well, he's not perfect, and I can think of areas where he's disappointed me, but anything's better than the one we had before him.'
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.![]()
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I'm just criticizing an argument based on him 'making it OK to be friends with America'. it's PR. I don't think all the Obama supporters are sheep - many are (as with supporters of any politican, especially a popular one but not only)
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Here I must agree. I hope he doesn't shift his support to the other side of conflict though, they are no better

Well, it's obvious that the current president is always the worst one, because humans love to speculate.