Why does Obama deserve another 4 years?

Why does the President deserve another 4 years?

Because scum like Romney don't deserve a shot in the first place.

Mixolyde wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

people forget that one of the problems we have is that when you want fixes like the ones people want to assign to Obama's failures, they take time.

And a congress that will play ball. This one won't even show up to the game, unless they know they can win ahead of time.

That can be fixed, with time. He just needs... more... time.

(... augh crap I can't find the clip from South Park.)

I'll give Obama credit for Obama and for making a concerted effort to reform healthcare. There's a lot else wrong with his presidency, starting with the fact that it's incredibly corrupt. Judicial Watch has ranked Obama as one of the top ten most corrupt politicians in America for every year of his presidency, and he keeps rising up the ranks. Not only has he been very secretive, but he's also been involved in a lot of shady deals like Solyndra:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/corrupt...

President Barack Obama: President Obama makes Judicial Watch’s “Ten Most Wanted” list for a fifth consecutive year. (The former Illinois Senator was also a “Dishonorable Mention” in 2006.) And when it comes to Obama corruption, it may not get any bigger than Solyndra. Solyndra was once known as the poster child for the Obama administration’s massive “green energy” initiative, but it has become the poster child for the corruption that ensues when the government meddles in the private sector. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September 2011, leaving 1,100 workers without jobs and the American taxpayers on the hook for $535 million thanks to an Obama administration stimulus loan guarantee.

Despite the Obama administration’s reticence to release details regarding this scandal, much is known about this shady deal. White House officials warned the president that the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program was “dangerously short on due diligence,” nonetheless the Obama administration rushed the Solyndra loan through the approval process so it could make a splash at a press event. The company’s main financial backer was a major Obama campaign donor named George Kaiser. While the White House said Kaiser never discussed the loan with White House officials, the evidence suggests this is a lie. And, further demonstrating the political nature of the Obama administration’s activities, the Energy Department pressured Solyndra to delay an announcement on layoffs until after the 2010 elections. Despite the public outrage at this scandalous waste of precious tax dollars, President Obama continues to defend the indefensible and has refused to sack anyone over the Solyndra mess.

President Obama continues to countenance actions by his appointees that undermine the rule of law and constitutional government:

•Despite a ban on funding that Obama signed into law, his administration continues to fund the corrupt and allegedly defunct “community” organization ACORN. In July 2011 Judicial Watch uncovered a $79,819 grant to AHCOA (Affordable Housing Centers of America), the renamed ACORN Housing which has a long history of corrupt activity. In absolute violation of the funding ban, Judicial Watch has since confirmed that the Obama administration has funneled $730,000 to the ACORN network, a group that has a long personal history with President Obama.In 2011, JW released a special report entitled “The Rebranding of ACORN,” which details how the ACORN network is alive and well and well-placed to undermine the integrity of the 2012 elections – evidently with the assistance of the Obama administration.

•Barack Obama apparently believes it is his “prerogative” to ignore the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law when it comes to appointing czars. According to Politico: “President Barack Obama is planning to ignore language in the 2011 spending package that would ban several top White House advisory posts. Obama said this ban on “czars” would undermine “the President’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” In other words, Barack Obama believes he must ignore the U.S. Constitution to protect the U.S. Constitution. Many Obama administration czars have not been subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate as required by the U.S. Constitution. In 2011, JW released a first-of-its-kind comprehensive report on the Obama czar scandal, entitled “President Obama’s Czars.”

•In an historic victory for Judicial Watch and an embarrassing defeat for the Obama White House, a federal court ruled on August 17, 2011 that Secret Service White House visitor logs are agency records that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the decision in Judicial Watch v. Secret Service. The Obama administration now will have to release all records of all visitors to the White House – or explain why White House visits should be kept secret under the law. The Obama White House continues to fight full disclosure and has stalled the release of records by appealing the lower court decision.(Judicial Watch gave Obama a “failing grade” on transparency in testimony before Congress in 2011. (Read the testimony in full as well as additional congressional testimony during a hearing entitled “White House Transparency, Visitor Logs and Lobbyists.”))

•In 2011, the Obama National Labor Relations Board sought to prevent the Seattle-based Boeing Company from opening a $750 million non-union assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina, to manufacture its Dreamliner plane. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) showing this lawsuit was politically motivated. Judicial Watch uncovered documents showing NLRB staff cheerleading for Big Labor, mouthing Marxist, anti-American slurs and showing contempt for Congress related to the agency’s lawsuit against Boeing, including email correspondence attacking members of Congress. And it starts at the top. Obama bypassed Congress and recess-appointed Craig Becker, who is connected to the AFL-CIO, the SEIU and ACORN, to the NRLB.

•Obama’s corrupt Chicago dealings continued to haunt him in 2011.Obama’s real estate partner, campaign fundraiser and Obama pork recipient Antoin “Tony” Rezko was finally sentenced to jail this year as was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is now set to serve 14 years for attempting to sell Obama’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. The FBI continues to withhold from Judicial Watch documents of its historic interview of then-Senator Obama about the Illinois corruption scandal.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/about/

Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation

Not to turn this into a political yelling match, but that's hardly a non-partisan site. If anyone couldn't tell from the content.

All of those charges seem ridiculous and only backed up by "research" done by that same website.

I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet this directly: because Obama is willing to bend over backwards to work with any Republican Party that can muster up even an ounce of respect for Obama being President.

Seriously--all we talk about is how partisanship is killing our democracy. How it's all just a game to these politicians. How all they care about is getting re-elected. Blah Blah Blah.

Then Obama comes along and, whatever his other faults, seems completely serious about working with the other side and hearing their concerns. He's rewarded for that with questions about being a seekret Muslim AND a Rev. Wright disciple at the same time, somehow. And a bunch of other things I don't even want to repeat. It almost feels like the reaction Lincoln got upon being elected: don't even give this guy a shot, he's the devil and we must do everything in our power to stop him even though he hasn't done anything yet.

So that's why Obama deserves to be President. Because we talk and talk about how much we hate that our politicians can't work together for the good of the country anymore, and a politician that clearly could and made doing so a core priority doesn't deserve to be taken down by the scorched earth tactics of the kinds of politicians we spend all our time complaining about.

Tanglebones wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:
ChrisLTD wrote:
Sparhawk wrote:

Any President would have gotten Bin Laden.

Not true. Bush didn't get him. And McCain, Romney and Hillary Clinton all said they wouldn't have crossed into Pakistan for military strikes.

You can't use arguments for something that didn't happen. They all were not the president. So in the end, we will never know.
Once in office, many things change. Including whatever they said to get your vote and all the fancy promises they made.

Actually, when the opportunity to send a strike force after Bin Laden during the Battle of Tora Bora presented itself, Rumsfeld and Bush refused to authorize the action. This was a major point of contention in the 2004 election, as Bush & Rumsfeld defended the decision, while Kerry took the opposite view.

Ok, didn't know about that one. So fine. It still is weird that they would be against that part, but are willing to invade a country where there is no Bin Laden?
That's really really weird. And only adds up when there is money to be made, over dead bodies.
By all means, invade Afghanistan and wipe out the al-Qaeda and then get the hell out. No good reason whatsoever to stay. Except money to be made of course.

Fred Kaplan's take on going after Bin Laden. It was, apparently, a bold, risky, difficult decision that, no, not any president would have made.

He doesn't deserve 4 more years. But we have to elect somebody.

Don't we have a few Supreme Court Justices getting up there in age? Probably not the worst reason to vote for Obama if you support more liberal social policies.

Grubber788 wrote:

Don't we have a few Supreme Court Justices getting up there in age? Probably not the worst reason to vote for Obama if you support more liberal social policies.

We do, but they tend to be folks on the liberal side of the political spectrum. If anything, re-electing Obama for the sake of the Supreme Court would be mostly to prevent Monsanto and Halliburton from getting a guaranteed majority.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Because I like him, and hate the other guy.

Best reason so far. The least of two evils ;).

I'm seeing a lot of reasons that he's better than Romney, but not really any reasons he should get 4 more years.

It's so sad seeing the conversation always come back to this... It's not about how if enough people are sick of the current system that they should vote with their feet for a 3rd party, but how everyone is going to resign themselves once again to someone less awful than the other one because of party loyalty, or lesser-of-two evils. The only reason there are two evils for everyone to choose from is because everyone chooses to only pay attention to the two evils.

Ranger Rick wrote:

I'm seeing a lot of reasons that he's better than Romney, but not really any reasons he should get 4 more years.

It's so sad seeing the conversation always come back to this... It's not about how if enough people are sick of the current system that they should vote with their feet for a 3rd party, but how everyone is going to resign themselves once again to someone less awful than the other one because of party loyalty, or lesser-of-two evils. The only reason there are two evils for everyone to choose from is because everyone chooses to only pay attention to the two evils.

Indeed. I have voted third party most elections and given the opportunity I'll do so this year. I'll continue "throwing away my vote" until things change or they field a candidate not bought and owned by special interests.

I don't find Obama to be an evil. I don't think he has been nearly as good of a president as I expected, and not a good as Clinton. But he has been solid.

I'm hopeful that he will have a better second term. I think he learned more on the job than I would have expected him to need to, but I look forward to how he handles a second term.

Jayhawker wrote:

I don't find Obama to be an evil. I don't think he has been nearly as good of a president as I expected, and not a good as Clinton. But he has been solid.

I'm hopeful that he will have a better second term. I think he learned more on the job than I would have expected him to need to, but I look forward to how he handles a second term.

This is pretty much how I feel; I'm less than impressed with him, but not awful. I'm really disappointed by his stances on civil liberties and the fact that it took him until now to come out for equal marriage rights, but I also am conscious of the fact that he has faced an astoundingly hostile Congress for the last few years and pretty much constant insanity-level raving in the media.

So, yes, less than I expected, but better than the alternative by far. I voted for him in 2008, now it's half voting for who I hope he'll be in the second term, and half against the douchebag in the suit the GOP is running.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

I don't find Obama to be an evil. I don't think he has been nearly as good of a president as I expected, and not a good as Clinton. But he has been solid.

I'm hopeful that he will have a better second term. I think he learned more on the job than I would have expected him to need to, but I look forward to how he handles a second term.

This is pretty much how I feel; I'm less than impressed with him, but not awful. I'm really disappointed by his stances on civil liberties and the fact that it took him until now to come out for equal marriage rights, but I also am conscious of the fact that he has faced an astoundingly hostile Congress for the last few years and pretty much constant insanity-level raving in the media.

So, yes, less than I expected, but better than the alternative by far. I voted for him in 2008, now it's half voting for who I hope he'll be in the second term, and half against the douchebag in the suit the GOP is running.

+1

Ranger Rick wrote:

I'm seeing a lot of reasons that he's better than Romney, but not really any reasons he should get 4 more years.

That's why I made my post: I saw something similar, and I wanted to lay out a positive reason why he deserved it. The fact that he genuinely wants to work with the other side--and passed up the opportunity to kick the Republicans when they were so down, people were talking about 40 years of wandering in the political desert before their brand name wouldn't be repellant--doesn't just make him better than Romney. It makes him good: it's an absolute value of his, not a comparative one.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

This is pretty much how I feel; I'm less than impressed with him, but not awful. I'm really disappointed by his stances on civil liberties and the fact that it took him until now to come out for equal marriage rights, but I also am conscious of the fact that he has faced an astoundingly hostile Congress for the last few years and pretty much constant insanity-level raving in the media.

So, yes, less than I expected, but better than the alternative by far. I voted for him in 2008, now it's half voting for who I hope he'll be in the second term, and half against the douchebag in the suit the GOP is running.

I agree with that assessment for the most part, but I feel that until things change systemically, the best we're going to get is "not awful" and the trend seems to be downward. Ultimately, the biggest problem is not (very much) the president; it's congress. The only way things will get better as far as real legislation that affects us as a country is to have someone in the oval office with the balls to say "I'm going to veto all this stupid stuff until you start working together," and that's not coming from either the Democrats nor the Republicans. They're both too invested in the deadlock as it is (and the money that comes with pushing that deadlock around).

Ranger Rick wrote:

It's so sad seeing the conversation always come back to this... It's not about how if enough people are sick of the current system that they should vote with their feet for a 3rd party, but how everyone is going to resign themselves once again to someone less awful than the other one because of party loyalty, or lesser-of-two evils.

There are 100 million or more people involved in picking a president. That's a big committee to have on a project. Design compromises have to be made. It's no surprise we're all kind of meh about the resulting candidate.

Funkenpants wrote:

There are 100 million or more people involved in picking a president. That's a big committee to have on a project. Design compromises have to be made. It's no surprise we're all kind of meh about the resulting candidate.

Exactly why we need to choose from more than 2 of them.

Ranger Rick wrote:

Exactly why we need to choose from more than 2 of them. :)

We do. There have been third parties. They just can't aggregate enough voting blocs and interest groups to achieve significance beyond helping one of the two primary candidates to win over the other.

Also, Republicans and Democrats have no fixed principles. They can adapt any popular ideas into their existing brands. If some libertarian or socialist or fascist idea become more popular, nothing stops the Republicans or Democrats from slicing off that idea and integrating it into their platforms. This is why the two party system remains popular. It's pretty adaptable, which gives it as high level of survivability over more rigid ideological parties.

Ranger Rick wrote:

I agree with that assessment for the most part, but I feel that until things change systemically, the best we're going to get is "not awful" and the trend seems to be downward. Ultimately, the biggest problem is not (very much) the president; it's congress. The only way things will get better as far as real legislation that affects us as a country is to have someone in the oval office with the balls to say "I'm going to veto all this stupid stuff until you start working together," and that's not coming from either the Democrats nor the Republicans. They're both too invested in the deadlock as it is (and the money that comes with pushing that deadlock around).

Considering one party treats this:

like a proclamation of religious faith, I don't see how that would make anything better. What you're talking about sounds exactly like the Republican plan for defeating Obama, let alone something they would fear.

Yeah, it's not the Democrats pushing the deadlock in Congress, Ranger Rick. The Republicans, primarily the ones in the House, have all but paralyzed that body. They want Obama out so bad that they're willing to burn the country to ashes to see that he's gone.

CheezePavilion wrote:

The fact that he genuinely wants to work with the other side--and passed up the opportunity to kick the Republicans when they were so down, people were talking about 40 years of wandering in the political desert before their brand name wouldn't be repellant--doesn't just make him better than Romney. It makes him good: it's an absolute value of his, not a comparative one.

Collaborating with evil doesn't make you good. It makes you Vichy France.

Funkenpants wrote:

We do. There have been third parties. They just can't aggregate enough voting blocs and interest groups to achieve significance beyond helping one of the two primary candidates to win over the other.

And every time a third party candidate gets any semblance of popularity, they change the rules so it's harder to get on the national stage next time. At this point it's not that "more rigid" 3rd parties don't get enough mindshare, it's that the system is set up so the Republicans and Democrats get to keep them from getting mindshare in the first place, forcing them to jump through stricter and stricter rules each election cycle. Add to that how much things are tilted towards whoever has the most money and we never get to find out if someone has better ideas.

Malor wrote:

Yeah, it's not the Democrats pushing the deadlock in Congress, Ranger Rick. The Republicans, primarily the ones in the House, have all but paralyzed that body. They want Obama out so bad that they're willing to burn the country to ashes to see that he's gone.

I expect if the Democrats had a majority, they'd be doing the same thing. It's not like the rhetoric has done anything but ratchet up and up. That's the problem with the "us vs. them" mentality in a 2-party system in the first place. No one's actually trying to help the country, only themselves; anyone that could consider trying to get into the mix and make a difference is pushed out of the system.

It's still possible to actually care about your constituents at the local level, but by the time you get up to the states you're already beholden to a bunch of groups that funded you, much more than you are to doing what you think is best, and that just gets even worse at the national level.

I'm not saying I think there's really a chance to change things, but I'm also not going to pretend voting the lesser evil between Obama and Romney is going to make an appreciable difference in improving most Americans' lives. So I choose to conscientiously object in the only way I know, and not support the messed up structure we currently have. Even though I agree that Obama would be a bit less bad than Romney. Or even if I thought the other way around. It's like choosing between 19 and 20 on a scale of 1-100.

Ranger Rick wrote:

And every time a third party candidate gets any semblance of popularity, they change the rules so it's harder to get on the national stage next time.

The Green Party runs candidates in each election. So do the libertarians. Is there any indication that the policies of one or the other is more attractive to a majority of Americans than those offered by Republicans and Democrats? Even at the state and local level that success of these parties is very limited, and they are two of the most popular third parties.

Which combination of policies do you think a third party would offer that would be immensely popular with independents, the group that has no loyalty to either of the two main parties and would form the base of any independent party?

Funkenpants wrote:
Ranger Rick wrote:

And every time a third party candidate gets any semblance of popularity, they change the rules so it's harder to get on the national stage next time.

The Green Party runs candidates in each election. So do the libertarians. Is there any indication that the policies of one or the other is more attractive to a majority of Americans than those offered by Republicans and Democrats? Even at the state and local level that success of these parties is very limited, and they are two of the most popular third parties.

Which combination of policies do you think a third party would offer that would be immensely popular with independents, the group that has no loyalty to either of the two main parties and would form the base of any independent party?

I can imagine two:
Socially Liberal Fiscally Conservative Group ---- Low taxes, pro choice, pro science and environmentally friendly
Socially Conservative Entitlement Spending ---- Anti-abortion, Creationist, and strong social welfare programs

Funkenpants wrote:

The Green Party runs candidates in each election. So do the libertarians. Is there any indication that the policies of one or the other is more attractive to a majority of Americans than those offered by Republicans and Democrats? Even at the state and local level that success of these parties is very limited, and they are two of the most popular third parties.

...and due to ballot access laws, despite being known and being able to field candidates every election cycle, the Green Party and Libertarians (and others) struggle to get on the ballot in all 50 states, since they need people to go out of their way to sign petitions to be on the ballot, whereas the Democrats and Republicans basically get on automatically.

Since third parties don't have as much national notoriety, they are also more likely to get money from individual contributions rather than PACs, but individual contributions are limited to $2500, whereas PACs can give $5000. Not to mention all the other funky ways the committees can use the rest of the money to aid their candidates indirectly.

If you can get enough money, and thus eyeballs, to get ballot access and be a potential national candidate, you still don't automatically have access to the most important way to get noticed, the debates:

Wikipedia wrote:

Between 1992 and 1996, the Commission on Presidential Debates changed its rules regarding how candidates could qualify to participate in the presidential debates. As Perot had previously done very well in debates, it was a decisive blow to the campaign when the Commission ruled that he could not participate on basis of somewhat vague criteria — such as that a candidate was required to have already been endorsed by "a substantial number of major news organizations", with "substantial" being a number to be decided by the Commission on a case-by-case basis. Perot could not have qualified for the debates in 1992 under these rules, and was able to show that various famous US presidents would likewise have been excluded from modern debate by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

Everything is set up so that even if you know there may be 3rd parties out there, you may or may not ever get to hear their ideas on the public stage. It's all metastasized in a way that perpetuates the 2-party system, and if someone manages to break through with huge amounts of funds like Perot, they hammer that hole shut so it's even harder next time.

Ranger Rick wrote:

I'm not saying I think there's really a chance to change things, but I'm also not going to pretend voting the lesser evil between Obama and Romney is going to make an appreciable difference in improving most Americans' lives.

Over half of all Americans are female. I think there will be an appreciable difference between Romney and Obama on women's issues.