(no subject)

[weswilson]

Comments

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Damn. Way to go George.

[whitetomger.livejournal.com]

Nailed it.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

Hold his feet to the fire about what he's doing wrong, as well you should, but baby bathwater etc etc etc

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. He might even be better than Paul, but he's most certainly better than Romney or Gingrich. At this rate of infighting, the GOP will nominate Bachmann.

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

Really NDAA was the last nail on the coffin, out of a long list of complaints, so Mr. Clooney's viewpoint is simplistic at best. I am tired of this "vote for the lesser of two evils, the guy I kinda don't like but less bad than the other guy I hate" mentality. I'm going to vote for whom I please, thank you very much, and I don't need to be treated as a deserter for standing up and saying "enough."

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

http://nymag.com/news/politics/liberals-jonathan-chait-2011-11/

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with that. But I don't want to hear any bitching when the Republican wins.

You and I both know that, mechanically, a 3rd-party win is not possible without massive voting changes in the system. If we wish to ignore the mechanics in favor of ideals, I don't see it as reasonable to complain about the results. It's the equivalent of complaining about gravity.

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

yepp. The need to vote for the right candidate is feckless in this system. You vote for the good enough candidate.

Or would you be enjoying a Palin presidency about now?

[mzflux.livejournal.com]

Do you live in a swing state?

[goumindong.livejournal.com]

If liberals voted for more democrats, more democrats would be liberal. If you're on the left of the spectrum and you vote, you're going to move the median voter and if you move the median voter you're going to move not only the views of the people in Washington, but the entire discourse.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

This is a huge mischaracterization of the reasons progressives oppose Obama. It's not about "singular issues". It's not because we didn't get everything we wanted. It's because we didn't get anything we wanted.

Obama is not just wrong on a few issues. He's wrong on every issue. Even the dry bones he's tossed to his liberal base have been grudging, underhanded, and strategically worse than the status quo. If you think a fascist health care plan, a DADT repeal that doesn't acknowledge the legitimacy of service members' next-of-kin relationships, and a troop "drawdown" in Afghanistan that leaves a net increase in the number of troops stationed there are progressive victories, then you're as blind and stupid as the conservatives who cheered when Bush declared "mission accomplished!"

All other issues aside, Obama's signature on the recent defense authorization bill makes him the worst President in history, hands down. The man belongs in Gitmo. He can share a cell with his predecessor.

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

http://nymag.com/news/politics/liberals-jonathan-chait-2011-11/

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[mzflux.livejournal.com]

"It's because we didn't get anything we wanted. Obama is not just wrong on a few issues. He's wrong on every issue."

Well, that's a lot of hyperbole. He wasn't wrong on the Affordable Care Act and he wasn't wrong on plenty:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ward-in-praise-of-obamacare-20111206,0,6794828.story

The question is, at this point, does the good outweigh the bad?

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

Word.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

Ditto

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Amen

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Exactly. No matter how you feel about Obama (and I'm as disappointed as anyone) he's streets ahead of any Republican challenger (in 2008 or 2012) in terms of supporting progressive issues. He's already done more than Clinton did (and he's even corrected some of Clinton's mistakes).

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

Larry Summers was a Clinton mistake he should have remedied from
the get go, rather than welcoming him back into the fold. A deeply wrong economist.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

Ron Paul is far more progressive than Obama on economic issues. Dismantling the Federal Reserve is the progressive Holy Grail. And yes, it can and will happen. By ink or blood, it will happen.

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Oh, look, a privileged limousine liberal defending the status quo.

There are not just two sides, and if there were, Obama would not be on mine. He's shown his true colors, and all he is is a marginally less offensive member of the evil cabal that run this country.

I may vote for him in the general election, in the sense that I'd vote for Ahmadinejad over somebody visibly worse, but that DOES NOT make him good.

We need someone to primary him.

[whitetomger.livejournal.com]

It's another lesser of the evils situation. If there were Dem primaries everything would go to shit and the Republicans would have a field day.

I'm hoping General Clark puts in for the Dems again in 2016, he's awesome.

[jamie-miller.livejournal.com]

Horseshit. For me, Obama was a disappointment on EVERY ISSUE that meant something to me when I voted for him.

[weswilson]

I voted for him for three main planks.

1) Ending Guantanamo and american torture. It appears he's ended the torture, and he tried to close Guantanamo, but was stopped. I'm also fairly confident that if Congress hadn't put language in the Defense bill to enshrine indefinite detention, the president wouldn't have vetoed it for not including it. So I'm having a hard time believing I'm not getting at least some of what I want, here.

2) Ending our wars. I knew I wasn't getting much different than a republican with Obama, but it was at least a shift away from neoconservative jingoism. Libya showed that. And I knew he was going to escalate Afghanistan, and I'm confident he's trying to fight that war with more responsibility.

3) Improving our foreign relations. This has been done in spades.

While I might be disappointing that we have a moderate to balance out the republican nonsense of the Bush years, I can't claim he hasn't done anything for me.

3)

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/matt-damon-slams-obama-democrats-one-term-balls_n_1162511.html