from someone 4 clicks to the right of Obama "We live in a country in which many people live in information cocoons in which they only talk to members of their own party and read blogs of their own sect. They come away with perceptions fundamentally at odds with reality, fundamentally misunderstanding the man in the Oval Office. Liberals are wrong to call him weak and indecisive. He’s just not always pursuing their aims. Conservatives are wrong to call him a big-government liberal. That’s just not a fair reading of his agenda. Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market. He has tried to find this balance in a town without an organized center — ...he has done it with tremendous tenacity." Op-Ed Columnist - What Obama Stands For - NYTimes.com
So you are citing an op-ed from the far left New York Slimes to make the case that Obama is not far left? Okay…but you are not very convincing
of course he is a big government liberal. i dunno what else you would call his health care plans and cap and trade and everything else.
brooks isnt far left. not trying to convince anyone of anything. i just thought brooks made a reasonable assessment of the political landscape and obama's place in it.
Where does this dickhead come off labeling everyone in this country as unsensible? That said, I have always maintained that Obama could be a decent President if he cut off Pelosi and Reid at the neck.
Patience. Their job is to herd democrats and to take bullets for the party, which right now is taking bullets for Obama. He's going to let them. Good cop, bad cop. This ain't new. Tom Foley was Clintons bulldog. Newton L. Gingrich is a major example of a party lightning rod. Tom Daschle . . . Trent Lott.
i believe one of his biggest mistakes was letting p/r take control of health care. because i do believe that is what happened. instead of letting them hijack things, he needs to rein them in and force them into a more moderate stance. imo, they seem to think they are running things and are, unfortunately, getting away with it. edit to add: i disagree red. i think that there are some real divisions happening in the party and its highlighted with a growing split between reid and obama.
Who do you think is going to win that fight? Obama knows and he's playing Reid like a fiddle. Obama does not get to choose the leaders on the Hill. But he can be influential in getting someone to his liking when there is an opening. It's politics. Pelosi and Reid are shielding him right now, later if they become millstones around his neck and he'll drop them and try to steer someone more to his liking in the position.
Bingo. He underestimated his opponents also. If he would have plainly spelled out what his plan consists of, what the bill says, etc. instead of dancing around it, and giving the same old speech hillary made in the 90's, i think the reception would have been a whole hell of a lot better. All the right is doing is using the same old Reagan propaganda and it still works.
