Death of an Obama fanboy

hobbsyoyo

hobbsyoyo

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So there has been a lot of talk of reviving red diamond threads and empowering OP's to police their own threads a bit more, so I thought I'd give it a go and see how well it turns out.

This thread is about the death of an Obama fanboy. This fanboy shall remain anonymous, but his name begins with 'hobbs' and ends with 'yoyo'. As you all have surely noticed, I have been one of the biggest Obama supporters on CFC and defend pretty much everything he's done. I have secretly harbored doubts of late but faithfully held the line down in the muddy trenches of American political discourse.

I have recently come down with a bad case of shell shock and I can no longer hide my disillusionment with the patron saint of hope and change. Before crafting this thread, I've tried hard to pin down exactly what my beef with the President is and unfortunately I can't do it. In my opinion, there is not one single big problem with him, rather I see failing across multiple issues. My goal with this thread is to discuss the failings and successes of the President in a thoughtful, rational way so that hopefully some sort of consensus will emerge.

I will start out by listing some policy areas that I care deeply about and give my honest opinion on how well or how badly he has handled them. The first point of discussion however, will be the Republican party because though I now lay much blame at Obama's feet, it's impossible to ignore the elephant in the china cabinet smashing up everything.

This is going to be a massive post and I'll spoiler it to cut down in size. Feel free to only pick up and talk about the parts you're interested in.

Some ground rules:
Spoiler :

*Back and forth personal bickering will not be tolerated.

*No discussion of libertarian philosophy. It's just not mainstream and isn't germane and I don't care what some non-mainstream political movement or politicians have to say about this topic and I won't tolerate it. At all.

*No discussion along the lines of Democrats/Republicans hate America/want to destroy America.

*No use of inflammatory labels such as teahadist.

*No discussion about racism from the right or the left.

*This is meant to be about your opinions and ideas, not sources and arguments over 'the facts'. To this end, no articles or snippets from other websites will be allowed and let's try to accept the opinions and ideas of other posters at their word instead of demanding sourcing. Obviously, factually wrong information can be called out but I will monitor it to keep the discussion moving instead of devolving into fact-check bickering. I'll allow a bit of wiggle room with this rule, it's not meant to be hard and fast but just a guideline.

*I will ask that you all try and abide by the rules. If I see an issue, I will VM or PM you and ask you to remove the content. If there is no timely response I will report the violation.


The Republican Party
Spoiler :
It's difficult to discuss Obama's failings and successes without discussing the Republican party as they are intimately tied up in the failures. On the occasion of the first Obama inauguration, many of the top Republican leaders (including Paul Ryan) skipped the galas and festivities. They instead chose to meet separately and discuss their strategy for making Obama a failed, one-term president. That was the genesis of Republican intransigence. I acknowledge that a large minority of the country has opposed Obama since day one, but that does not excuse the obnoxious behavior of the party leadership. That's all I really need to say on the subject as we've covered it a ton in these threads already. Feel free to fill in the blanks.


The Sequester
Spoiler :
Goddamn this was such a terrible idea - and it was Obama's. I can't run from that fact as much as I want to explain it away. Truth is, there are some mitigating circumstances, but in the end it was the strategy he chose to use to deal with Republican obstinacy. The plan was to enact cuts that were so unpalatable to the American people and the political class that something would be done to solve our budgetary impasse and avoid the cuts. What he failed to account for is that the Tea Party wanted those kinds of deep cuts and the rest of the Republicans were also happy to get them as they at once satisfied their budget crusader branding while simultaneously allowing them to lay the blame for the negative effects of the cuts at Obama's feet.

The cuts are deep and across the board and everything from education to the military will be affected. What's worse, it gave the Republicans another tool to hammer at Obama as they can now try and label him as 'soft on defense' or 'soft on terrorism' over the military cuts - a label that would have been impossible given his effective wielding of the US Military to pursue foreign policy goals and fight our wars.

I have to blame Obama for failing to see the error in this policy. After all the intransigence the Republicans have shown from the debt limit debacle and every other issue, I have no idea why he thought this would work. I don't think there will be a solution to it and the cuts are going to really hurt in the rest of the year and beyond unless our economy roars back to life and tax income rises.


The Economy
Spoiler :
I think there is only so much a President can do in the short term to affect the economy, especially when they don't have a willing Congress to enact legislation with the power to fix problems. Long term, there are lots of policies that can have a big impact (look at the Great Recession and how it stemmed from decades of bad policies and legislation) but for the here and now, there's not much that can be done without Congress. I do applaud Obama for putting such emphasis on research and education, but again, there isn't much he has the power to do.


Foreign Policy
Spoiler :
I think Obama has largely undid some of the negative perception and backlash among our allies that resulted from the Iraq war. I think he (and Hillary Clinton) have wisely chosen to focus some of our outreach efforts to Asia where we now compete for regional leadership with China. Further, I think he's put on a show of American strength and resolve in foreign policy issues that range from economics (such as fair trade wrt China) to alliance building and repair globally.


Military Policy
Spoiler :
I think Iraq wound up ending as well as it could have given the previous years of mismanagement and the following success of the surge. I can't give Obama much credit or blame for how Iraq ended as the surge there wasn't his doing and neither was most of the debacles. He followed through on a campaign promise and rather than trying to strong-arm the Iraqi government into signing a lasting status of forces agreement, he just ended it then and there.

I'm torn on Afghanistan as I think his surge and reemphasis on the country has helped, but I'm not sure if it went far enough. There seem to be some positive signs coming from the country with respect to their strength in fighting the Taliban. At the same time, there are plenty of signs that the country could devolve into another decade of Civil war and dictatorship. Only time will tell I guess, but I do think he could have done more in his first term to crush the Taliban.

Drone policy is another issue I'm torn on. On the one hand, it's a smart way to fight a war or to go after our enemies. It's certainly preferential to carpet bombing, napalm defoliation and outright invasion. On the other hand, it does create sworn enemies in countries where we don't need them. Of course, there are probably less enemies who arise from drone attacks than would arise from carpet bombing or invasion. The answer to some people is simply to not get involved in places such as the Pakistan border or in various African/Middle Eastern countries where we target terrorists. I'm not sure that's the answer either as we largely did that in the decade that led up to 9/11. I'm just not sure on this issue. I realize he made an announcement about this but I have been following so I leave it to you all to fill in the details.

I think our domestic military policy desperately needs adjustment however. I support continuing research into new weapons systems and platforms. I do not support bases in every single state though and the only reason we have so many redundant bases is because that's the way congress likes to spread the money around. I think we should do more consolidation and base closures. I'd leave most of our overseas facilities open as they are powerful tools and projection of American power. But a lot of the domestic bases should go and there should be a general down-scaling of our massive military as Afghanistan closes.

Libya probably stands out as a really good example of a smart use of our military. I am unsure about our course of action in Syria or what's going to happen in Iran. Certainly people think he hasn't done enough in Iran to date, but short of war (which should be a last resort) I don't know what else he can do.


Education
Spoiler :
I think the Race to the Top is a smart program and it builds on the better parts of No Child Left Behind while ditching the flawed ones. I think he's wisely chosen to emphasize Public and Higher Education, but outside of Race to the Top, I'm not sure he's actually done much in this arena. Part of that is he simply can't allocate resources he doesn't have given the budget situation, but it also seems like he hasn't spent very much time on the big problems our overall education system faces. We still have so many failing primary schools in this nation and a university system that is ballooning out of control.

I think that while lack of resources may be an issue with primary education, higher education badly needs reform which may not be that costly. At some point we (as a nation) have to draw the line and stop accrediting junk colleges that lure in bright-eyed youngsters with promises of awesome futures in high paying careers only to saddle them massive mounds of debt and worthless degrees. There is a ton of outright fraud going on and these junk colleges have gamed the student loan systems in such a way that simultaneously drain funds out of the system to go to dubious programs, leave students with crushing debt they can't pay off with their worthless degrees in fields no one is hiring in and also driving up the overall cost of education. I don't think simply trying to forgive everyone's student loans is politically palatable or feasible, but something has to be done both on the supply side (clamping down on the DeVry institutes of the country) as well as reforming the demand side by allowing bankruptcy to cancel student debt and doing more to educate students in how to pick a degree program and colleges intelligently as well as better preparing them for college so that so much time isn't spent in remedial courses which further burden the entire system.

In short, he's talked a big talk and done some positive things, but our education system is heading for crisis and small steps won't cut it.


Transparency
Spoiler :
I think he's done really well on this front. The problem is unrealistic or outright stupid expectations. He has done more to make the executive branch more open, but people have taken his pledge to mean that he should open up everything the government does. Clearly there is a need for secrecy in certain arenas and the goal to achieve transparency is a balancing act and a work in progress. However, I think much of the furor over lack of transparency is itself a transparent political attacks with no real basis. This area isn't my strong suit, so tell me I'm wrong.


The Domestic War on Terror
Spoiler :
This issue ranges from Guantanamo Bay to domestic wiretapping. I'll leave this issue wide open as it's so contentious but I think he's done pretty OK if not stellar.


Space Policy
Spoiler :
What the hell did you expect from me? Of course I'm going to talk about it even if you all don't care. :lol: But seriously, there is a sea change going on in the arena of space policy that I think people should at least know about. Previously, almost everything done in space was done by the government or for the government. Obama is trying to change that by bringing competition to the system and by investing in private space companies so that they can overcome the massive initial capital investments needed to get involved in this sphere of economic activity. This is huge - this is going to be bigger than the impact of the US Airmail service on the airline industry (which was itself massive). There is so much potential for explosive economic growth and it's one area where Obama has made some seriously smart decisions. Even on the exploration front, Obama refocused our previous lunar program that was way behind schedule because it was never funded into a sustainable, serious program that will lead to major advancements in our understanding of the universe and our ability to leave the cradle of Earth behind. I'll stop here but if anyone's interested I'll go further into detail about what I'm talking about.


Obama's dealings with Congress
Spoiler :
Are a failure. Plain and simple. I don't think he's done enough to reign in his own caucus and though the Republicans are intent on doing nothing, I still think Obama could have done and can do better. I can't lay a finger on why he's failing so hard at this, but he clearly is.


Immigration Reform
Spoiler :
I think he's doing OK with the hand he's been dealt with in Congress. I don't know how this will turn out in the end because that's largely up to the Republicans. But he's already made massive investments in securing the border and doing nothing (which has been the previous course of action) only angers people and aggravates the issue. Hopefully something meaningful will pass and I think it will, but we'll have to see.


Health Reform
Spoiler :
It was a big win for Obama - but at what cost? There is so much criticism of Obamacare from the left and the right and some of it is justified while I think a lot of it way off base. From the left, it doesn't go far enough. But it's the best that could be passed in my opinion and it barely got through. It will be improved upon in time. From the right, well most of the people who complain about it have no viable alternatives, forget that this was originally a Republican plan and have never gone without insurance themselves. Forgive my personal bias in not caring what they think.

But it is certainly fair to ask was the reform worth it? It basically used up all of his political capital for both terms right at the beginning of his presidency. It cemented any wavering Republican opposition, gave birth to the Tea Party and ensured that all of his other major initiatives for the next 3 years failed. On the one hand, I think he couldn't have passed it if he had waited and something desperately needed to be done. I also think much of the public's perception of Obamacare has been carefully manicured by Republican attacks on it as people by and large support most of the parts of the bill when it's broken down for them and not presented as 'death panels'. It also hasn't fully kicked in with all the benefits, so there's that.

Still....was the price too high for this reform?

Please, feel free to tear Obamacare to shreds but spare me (personally) some of your grief. I don't have health insurance and strongly support this reform so keep that in mind when you feel a compulsion to attack me personally. Please, let's stick to the issue and not the poster and let's also try and stay away from discussing freeloaders, death panels and all that garbage.


If you all have any other big issues that you care about that I missed, feel free to talk about them.
 
Since everyone likes a scorecard*, here's mine:

Wins: 4 (foreign policy, transparency, space policy, health reform)
Ties: 4 (economy, military policy, domestic war on terror, immigration reform)
Losses: 3 (sequester, education, Obama's dealings with congress)

If the score card still seems very pro-Obama, realize it used to be something like 7-2-2 for me.

*excluding the Republican Party
 
Before Obama's first term I thought, just maybe, he would be ok. I already at that point had a deep mistrust for the Dems and view both parties as pretty much the same. It quickly became apparent that he was just like the others, continuing the general policies over the last several decades.

I won't go into the other issues you raised but I will bring up healthcare. 'Obamacare' is not a step in the right direction at all, just the opposite. Private insurance companies must be gotten rid of; they only make money on denying care, and while Obamacare will require them to cover people it will not require them to pay for care. And even if the insurance company pays for care it can hurt people in other ways - not sure if many know this, but with a lot of big employers the health insurance is self funded. This means the costs for claims is paid for by the employer, not the insurance company, so if you have medical needs it will become in the interest of the company to lay you off. And, since most people are at will employees, they can be laid off for no reason.

We need a national health insurance.
 
I feel as European that Obama has increased the US's standing in the world. Hilary has helped a lot with this.
 
galdre said:
Before Obama's first term I thought, just maybe, he would be ok. I already at that point had a deep mistrust for the Dems and view both parties as pretty much the same. It quickly became apparent that he was just like the others, continuing the general policies over the last several decades.

I won't go into the other issues you raised but I will bring up healthcare. 'Obamacare' is not a step in the right direction at all, just the opposite. Private insurance companies must be gotten rid of; they only make money on denying care, and while Obamacare will require them to cover people it will not require them to pay for care. And even if the insurance company pays for care it can hurt people in other ways - not sure if many know this, but with a lot of big employers the health insurance is self funded. This means the costs for claims is paid for by the employer, not the insurance company, so if you have medical needs it will become in the interest of the company to lay you off. And, since most people are at will employees, they can be laid off for no reason.

We need a national health insurance.
Click to expand...
I agree we do need NHS but this is what we got and the kinks will be worked out just as they were (and are) with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Silurian said:
I feel as European that Obama has increased the US's standing in the world. Hilary has helped a lot with this.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
I agree we do need NIH but this is what we got and the kinks will be worked out just as they were (and are) with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Click to expand...

But they are not just kinks, there are fundamental problems with the basis of the whole system. Otherwise I'd agree with you.
 
I probably can't comment on this entire thing, but RttT was not a small program. It was at least as ambitious as NCLB, if not Title 1 (the biggest Ed bill in US history). If RttT is totally successful, the Obama administration is a success no matter what else happens.

There are a lot of reasons to be wary (particularly if you are in a a teacher's union) but the state-level gains already in quality and standardization of achievement data and in teacher accreditation programs are already quite significant. Obama and Duncan have also been big cheerleaders in expanding access to pre-k and early childhood education.

It would have been nice to prevent for profit colleges from getting FAFSA money though.
 
downtown said:
I probably can't comment on this entire thing, but RttT was not a small program. It was at least as ambitious as NCLB, if not Title 1 (the biggest Ed bill in US history). If RttT is totally successful, the Obama administration is a success no matter what else happens.

There are a lot of reasons to be wary (particularly if you are in a a teacher's union) but the state-level gains already in quality and standardization of achievement data and in teacher accreditation programs are already quite significant. Obama and Duncan have also been big cheerleaders in expanding access to pre-k and early childhood education.

It would have been nice to prevent for profit colleges from getting FAFSA money though.
Click to expand...

Would you care to elaborate on some specifics of RttT and it's successes and possible issues? I'm curious.

As for as early childhood, yes he vocally supports it but he also torpedoed it with the sequester deal. They are shutting down Headstart centers here in Missouri left and right, my wife took a one-week furlough along with all the other teachers and staff and it's going to be significantly worse here next year if they don't fix it. That means not only are teachers losing their jobs but a lot of needy kids are losing Headstart access altogether on top of other loss of services such as bus service they lost last year (in this area at least).

I am not sure how much overall public ed suffered from the sequester, but I imagine it was on the same scope as Headstart though I could be wrong.
 
I can not see a national health insurance system being introduced in the US from what I see in the press. There are to many vested interests with big check books to fight it.

The NHS was set up here after WW2 when the Labour government had a big mandate for change.
People saw the benefit of some things that happened during the war and wanted the progress to continue. But many doctors were against it.

It is unreasonable to expect Obama to make more radical changes without wider popular support for such a move.
 
Silurian said:
I can not see a national health insurance system being introduced in the US from what I see in the press. There are to many vested interests with big check books to fight it.

The NHS was set up here after WW2 when the Labour government had a big mandate for change.
People saw the benefit of some things that happened during the war and wanted the progress to continue. But many doctors were against it.

It is unreasonable to expect Obama to make more radical changes without wider popular support for such a move.
Click to expand...

It won't happen, I agree. However, many people do wish for it and I think it would be a much better solution than Obamacare even if it isn't realistic. 'Medicare for all' was something that was mooted and rejected during the Obamacare debate. But again, you're right, he doesn't have wider popular support for it at the moment. I wonder though how much of that has to do with effective smear campaigning from the right though given how much people support many of the ideas behind NHS type systems?

Edit: Just realized I mistakenly abbreviated National Health Service as NIH. :crazyeye:
 
hobbsyoyo said:
Would you care to elaborate on some specifics of RttT and it's successes and possible issues? I'm curious.

As for as early childhood, yes he vocally supports it but he also torpedoed it with the sequester deal. They are shutting down Headstart centers here in Missouri left and right, my wife took a one-week furlough along with all the other teachers and staff and it's going to be significantly worse here next year if they don't fix it. That means not only are teachers losing their jobs but a lot of needy kids are losing Headstart access altogether on top of other loss of services such as bus service they lost last year (in this area at least).

I am not sure how much overall public ed suffered from the sequester, but I imagine it was on the same scope as Headstart though I could be wrong.
Click to expand...

We won't know exactly how successful RttT is going to be be for several years sadly.

The gist of the program is that it's a massive competitive grant pool. If states make certain state-level policy changes, they stand the chance of winning more of the grant money. This way, you can give incentives to states to make what the administration believes to be positive ed polices without spending federal tax dollars, as everybody, not just the winners, makes the changes.

Some of the changes included increasing caps on # of charter schools,
tracking data on quality of teacher preparation programs,
creating new professional development plans for teachers,
creating alternative certification models for other professionals to enter the profession,
fully implementing state-wide value-added data tracking systems
improving state standards
auditing state curriculum
prioritizing STEM related education initiatives.

Over half the country participated, including an awful lot of Red states, with a few states already starting to show pretty significant achievement gains, like Tennessee.

Ideally, this provides a framework to better analyze how we train teachers and provide pathways to bring in more "strong" teachers, and make better data-driven decisions.

The program has come under fire from conservatives (its more Federal control of education!) and liberals (it isn't super kind to organized labor, continues to rely on testing data).
 
The thing is that Obama is not solely in charge of the US. The thing is that he's an elected politician. This means that not every policy that comes out of the government is Obama's brainchild, not every (not many?) statements on policy coming out of Obama's mouth are his.

Put yourself in a position of a politician wanting to win an election. The only way to actually win an election is to have people vote for you. Now figure the average amount of time a citizen takes to learn about issues compared to the time it takes the average citizen to form an opinion. Basically being an elected president means you've done better marketing than your opponent. So that's the environment you have to operate in. And that leaves very little space for ideology.

Now you've become the president. Well done. But that doesn't mean you can just go on and implement any old policy you've had your eyes on. Besides going against your ideology of honouring the mechanisms in place that are used to implement policies, the rules of marketing still apply. This is where I believe Obama's biggest problem become apparent. He didn't put out a strong and clear enough narrative as Bush did. Probably because he's a more nuanced kind of guy than Bush was. But not doing so left room for another mechanism that thrives on creating narratives since they have 24 hours of airtime and not enough news to fill it. (edit: before you say anything: no, not just them ;) )

All in all, I'm glad to hear you've rid yourself of fanboyism. Nothing wrong with being a fanboy for artists or a sports team, but I'd advice against being one for a politician. It's not as important to claim your team lost because of the referees and because the other team cheated (while your team simply sucked) it's another thing to let your fanboyism influence your judgement of your politicians and government officials.

edit: As is clear on your new vs old score card. Your post-fanboy scorecard looks much ore level-headed.
 
downtown said:
We won't know exactly how successful RttT is going to be be for several years sadly.

The gist of the program is that it's a massive competitive grant pool. If states make certain state-level policy changes, they stand the chance of winning more of the grant money. This way, you can give incentives to states to make what the administration believes to be positive ed polices without spending federal tax dollars, as everybody, not just the winners, makes the changes.

Some of the changes included increasing caps on # of charter schools,
tracking data on quality of teacher preparation programs,
creating new professional development plans for teachers,
creating alternative certification models for other professionals to enter the profession,
fully implementing state-wide value-added data tracking systems
improving state standards
auditing state curriculum
prioritizing STEM related education initiatives.

Over half the country participated, including an awful lot of Red states, with a few states already starting to show pretty significant achievement gains, like Tennessee.

Ideally, this provides a framework to better analyze how we train teachers and provide pathways to bring in more "strong" teachers, and make better data-driven decisions.

The program has come under fire from conservatives (its more Federal control of education!) and liberals (it isn't super kind to organized labor, continues to rely on testing data).
Click to expand...
Thanks dt.

Any other thoughts on Higher Ed?

Actually, I'm about to put up a thread that focuses on higher ed so I guess you can save it.

As for organized labor and testing students, I think teachers unions need to tone it down a bit. I'm a huge supporter of them but when they are seen as getting in the way of reform it stinks of them putting themselves first. To be clear, I understand teachers unions actually are under assault in some states and I fully support them. I also understand some of the issues that 'teaching to the test' mentality can bring and the potential repercussions of that approach. Still, it seems at times they become the stick in the mud who fight against reform not for the students but for themselves. An unfair way to look at them, maybe, but it's certainly a point of view that exists that they don't always help dispel.
Ziggy Stardust said:
The thing is that Obama is not solely in charge of the US. The thing is that he's an elected politician. This means that not every policy that comes out of the government is Obama's brainchild, not every (not many?) statements on policy coming out of Obama's mouth are his.

Put yourself in a position of a politician wanting to win an election. The only way to actually win an election is to have people vote for you. Now figure the average amount of time a citizen takes to learn about issues compared to the time it takes the average citizen to form an opinion. Basically being an elected president means you've done better marketing than your opponent. So that's the environment you have to operate in. And that leaves very little space for ideology.

Now you've become the president. Well done. But that doesn't mean you can just go on and implement any old policy you've had your eyes on. Besides going against your ideology of honouring the mechanisms in place that are used to implement policies, the rules of marketing still apply. This is where I believe Obama's biggest problem become apparent. He didn't put out a strong and clear enough narrative as Bush did. Probably because he's a more nuanced kind of guy than Bush was. But not doing so left room for another mechanism that thrives on creating narratives since they have 24 hours of airtime and not enough news to fill it. (edit: before you say anything: no, not just them ;) )

All in all, I'm glad to hear you've rid yourself of fanboyism. Nothing wrong with being a fanboy for artists or a sports team, but I'd advice against being one for a politician. It's not as important to claim your team lost because of the referees and because the other team cheated (while your team simply sucked) it's another thing to let your fanboyism influence your judgement of your politicians and government officials.

edit: As is clear on your new vs old score card. Your post-fanboy scorecard looks much ore level-headed.
Click to expand...
I've tried to focus on issues he actually can have an impact on as I am aware there are limits to Presidential power.

As for my fanboyism, to be fair to myself a lot of it is bluster on my part. Political debates can get downright vicious (and even more so on CFC!) and a lot of my fanboyism was simply a response to that and I didn't necessarily stand with everything I said or that the President did 100%, but put up the front to retort what I perceived to be people and posters who were being (in my mind) completely unreasonable.

However, most of my fanboyism was genuine. I am an optimistic person by nature and I want my country and president to succeed. It pained me to watch Bush fail so miserable because even as a partisan democrat, I couldn't stand to watch everything go to pot. The same goes for Obama, I want him to do well and I truly believed in him and I let a ton of things I didn't like slide and let my fanboy override my judgment. I'm still a fan of his, but I can't ignore the fact that things aren't going great at the moment and some of the blame for that is with him.

@PurpHaze:

the rules said:
*No use of inflammatory labels such as teahadist.
Click to expand...
 
Heh, I remember fanboyism being forced upon me by kochman.

But you make an interesting point. There have been a lot of hope for failure and glee at for instance unemployement rates here from those who are the partisan opposites of Obama. That for me who lives in a country where that kind of blatant partisanism is unheard of is staggering.
 
I think you are perhaps not aware of the starkness of the limits of presidential power. It is incredibly hard to do anything in America's political system. That is because there are so many veto points. One needs a majority (and a sympathetic Chair) in the relevant House committee and in the relevant Senate committee. Then one needs a majority in the House, and (of late) a super-majority in the Senate. And, to top it off, one needs a majority in the supreme court.

You are aware of all this, of course. But perhaps it isn't immediately obvious how hard it is to get four, perhaps five, consecutive majorities on one issue. It is exceedingly, hard, and made harder by the fact that the executive branch has almost nothing to offer these people; not even those within his own party. He has no real influence over their future electoral prospect, nor over there post-politics career prospects. Almost nobody moves from Congress into the executive. What influences these people are there constituencies, and these are incredibly varied. And, usually, this gives them no incentive to spend time on broad programs with a national impact. They win re-election on local policies and local re-distribution. This is why approval rates of individual congresspeople remain high will approval rates of Congress as a body sink so low. So, in short, what you have in the American system is a huge number of institutional veto points (I can think of no other modern democracy with as many)combined with legislators with disparate preferences and negligible incentive to support the national policies a president seeks. If you do not know where to put your finger on Obama's failures vis a vis Congress I would suggest that you lay it firmly on institutional structure.
 
Agreeing with you is inflammatory? Or are you still a fanboi? What?
 
US foreign standing has improved substantially in DK since Obama got elected. It actually shifted from a relationship of disgust to a balanced receptiveness, at least.
 
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