On 10/26/2011 6:07 PM, David R. Birch wrote:
On 10/26/2011 2:03 AM, Hawke wrote:

Really? From what I've read in the European press, he's seen as an
empty suit.

Compare that to Palin. Anywhere you go in the world she's seen as an
empty skirt.

So? That doesn't make Obama look good by comparison.

Just because you are not able to distinguish that there is a wide margin
between the abilities of Obama and Palin doesn't mean the rest of us
have any problem seeing it. After all Obama was elected president by a
wide margin. Palin could never get that job. So lots of us see who is
good and who is not.


I don't dislike him, he seems to be a nice enough and well meaning
guy. Not qualified to be POTUS, though, any more than Palin, who
seems quite a bitch and just as unqualified to be POTUS.

That is pretty much how I see her as well. So at least you can see some
thing for what it is.

At least you are able to see that Palin is unqualified and incapable
of a lot of things. I would also suggest that having been president
for nearly three years Obama is now qualified for the job.

How does experience at doing something badly lead to being now qualified?

That wouldn't lead to being qualified. But then bad is not how Obama has
done as president despite what you may think.


You may not like what he does but he knows the job now far better
than anyone who has never had the job.

And far worse than most who've had it. At least he isn't as bad as Nixon
or Clinton.\\

The fact you would put Nixon and Clinton in the same group tells me a
lot about your judgment. Nixon was a criminal and was booted out of
office. Most experts think Clinton was one of our better presidents. You
place them both as being bad. Clearly you are not seeing things all that
well if you judge one of the worst and one of the best as being equals.


Yet.



You're the man out of step with the rest of the world. Keep that
in mind next time you go bashing him. You've got the odd ball
view. You show that when you try to portray him as nothing but a
"communtiy organizer" when in fact he was a law professor and an
author too.

Somehow that doesn't increase my respect for him. Teaching law when
he hasn't actually practiced? An author? My sister has had books
published, too, they work well when I have trouble falling asleep,
a page or two and it's snooze city.

So you hold authors in low regard as well as law professors?

Once again, you demonstrate your poor reading comprehension. I don't
automatically hold authors or law professors in high or low regard, I
judge them by their merits.

Okay, it's just you have a strange way in what you see as merits. Simply
writing a best selling book or being an Ivy League graduate invited to
teach law at the school you graduated from doesn't imply merit in your
book. I'd say that makes your view very odd.


So what does it take, being a pro football player, or a rich man to
earn your respect?

I don't follow sports much since they stopped feeding Christians to
lions. If the pursuit of wealth produces such as Soros and Trump, no
idols there.


Your values seem rather low brow to me.

Other than that I am neither liberal nor conservative, you know nothing
of my values. OTOH, yours are all too transparent since you seem unable
to question anything from the DNC.

Sorry bro, it don't work like that. You don't get to tell me my values
are transparent but I know nothing of yours. I know as much of yours as
you do of mine, probably more. Everything coming from you is right
wing/libertarian. That's view is as easy to understand as pie.



You have to leave out a lot of his achievements to try to make
Palin look in his league. She's not, you know it, I know it,
everybody knows it. But you're clearly into living in a fantasy.

The only fantasy I ever had about poor Sarah was when she had a
chance of becoming VPILF and her general incompetence made that
wilt.

I agree that her incompetence is not in the same league as
Obama's, though, now that we've seen how little he's done.

If you knew what you were talking about you would know that in
comparison to other presidents at this point Obama has accomplished a
lot. Don't take my word though. See what the experts say. If you do they
will say Obama has a good record of accomplishments already.


Given that it's the job of republicans to prevent any legislation
from passing, what exactly do you think any non republican president
could have gotten done that Obama hasn't? I guarantee you Obama would
have done far more had it not been for the house tea party and the
senate filibuster. It's not that Obama is not competent to get things
done. It's that his opposition is in such a strong position that they
can stop him from doing anything. That's not exactly what the word
incompetence means.

Yes, in politics, incompetence is being unable to recognize that you
sometimes have to give to get. This is something both sides of the aisle
seem to have forgotten and a lot of people are sick and tired of this
paralysis. This fuels both the tea parties and the OWS crowd.

There are also times when you have people to deal with that are
intractable. Would you blame the Israelis because they can't make a deal
with the Palestinians? When you have to bargain with people who won't
compromise then deals are not made. It's like buying a house from
someone who wants more than it's worth and won't take any less. You
don't do the deal.

Obama has the most ideological congress maybe ever. They don't
compromise. This has happened many times in the past. When it does it
means things stall until a new congress comes in. There's nothing a
president can do in this case but wait it out. Or he can do what Obama
is doing, which is trying to accomplish as much as he can without
dealing with the congress.

Hawke