Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
With only three days until election day, I thought it would be interesting to reflect upon the under-reported and under-discussed issues of the last four years. Let us Riochetti count the ways the Obama administration has been given a pass - by the media, liberals, conservatives, the American public, academicians .... you name it. What topic do you think received less attention than it deserved? I'll start.
I think the way Obama decreased our chances for energy independence at a time when it affects our independence as a nation (given current dynamics in the Middle East and Venezuela) was given too little attention. From his often disparaging remarks about "big oil' and the coal industry to shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline to the near-moratorium on offshore gas and oil exploration, Obama decreased our chances for energy independence. Yes, we must balance our energy production with concern for the environment and the search for energy alternatives. But, are the countries from which we buy our oil and gas caring for their environments?
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Nov '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
How about the rise in poverty, homelessness, and falling wage rates?
Jan '11
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
The press has watched Obama and the Democrat Senate stop pretending to exercise representative government, following the 2010 shellacking. Almost all of the exercise of government has been carried back door, through regulation and agencies, where the Senate can prevent any interference.
The executive branch is supposed to propose a policy, have it validated by Congress, and only then can they implement the policy. With a mischievous president and a partisan Senate, the president doesn't have to care about Congressional review.
It's Madison's nightmare; government with no check or balance.
Jan '12
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
How apropos that you should ask the question, posed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, because the loyalty of the press is , indeed, akin to a love affair!
Would that most spouses were half as loyal!
Aug '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
He's been given a pass on sheer incompetence. Whatever metaphor you use for the Presidency--CEO, commander, decider, leader, etc--at its most basic he is expected to competently manage a large organization.
"Process" and other inside baseball stories are boring; individual ones can be outliers, quirks in the bureaucratic system. But the sum of all stories coming out of the Obama Administration paint a portrait of a man who does not manage his underlings at all. His staff may present material to him, he may express an opinion, and he may set a vague ideological direction from time to time. Once he even made a "bold decision" to risk the lives of Seal Team Six, as Obama has reminded us every 30 seconds since Benghazi blew up.
But as the head executive, Obama simply does not execute. He doesn't get involved in policy workings, not even his signature Obamacare achievement. He doesn't prune the dead weight from his staff to incrementally make them better. He doesn't know the regulations his bureaus inflict on the public.
He does not govern, period. And a press which demands good governance should be all over him for his shortcomings.
Oct '12
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
How about the hurricane Sandy fiasco? Just imagine if the images of dumpster diving, gas lines and so forth were playing out with George Bush as president? We'd have non stop coverage of "the failures of the administration" and how everything is Bush's fault. Where's the coverage of Obama's inept mobilization of federal resources?
Aug '12
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
The use of drones in Pakistan - it's sowing the wind for long term US interests in the area.
Nov '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Y'know, Anne, it's funny that you should mention Keystone. I was just reflecting on that one today. In one of the debates, Mitt Romney brought up Keystone and said that he'd definitely move forward on that. The President's response was--and I'm paraphrasing, as his exact words escape me--that we already have miles of pipeline that crisscross this country.
Um, what?! How did he get a complete pass on that non-answer? How more *irrelevant* to the issue could his response have been?
I think I'm most gobsmacked by the shocking lack of curiosity among our scribbling class. To riff on the bumper sticker,
Obama said it,
We believe it,
That settles it.
Nov '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Funding our flexible spending health care account for next year and Obamacare has cut the $5000 pretax limit in half to $2500. This is a direct tax on everyone, especially the working poor and the middle class. The media... crickets.
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Layla: Y'know, Anne, it's funny that you should mention Keystone. I was just reflecting on that one today. In one of the debates, Mitt Romney brought up Keystone and said that he'd definitely move forward on that. The President's response was--and I'm paraphrasing, as his exact words escape me--that we already have miles of pipeline that crisscross this country.
Um, what?! How did he get a complete pass on that non-answer? How more *irrelevant* to the issue could his response have been?
I'd forgotten about that non-response. His non-responses to important questions should be catalogued for the record.
Dec '11
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Recess appointments made when Congress is not in recess. Modification of laws concerning welfare and immigration enforcement. If Bush had done those, it would be front page shredding of the Constitution.
Rearranging the priority of creditors in the GM bankruptcy. I asked my congressperson, Anna Eshoo, what was wrong with our bankruptcy laws, making Obama's interference necessary, and whether she was going to introduce legislation reflecting Obama's new priority scheme. No answer. I'm sure she couldn't understand the question, but someone on her staff presumably could.
Stimulus funds diverted to crony contributors.
Overturning California's Civil Rights Initiative, outlawing affirmative action in college admissions, with respect to health professional's graduate programs, nursing, etc. Part of ACA.
And lying continuously, and about everything - from his knowledge of his illegal immigrant aunt in Boston public housing, to his "hands off" promise regarding the management of GM. OMG - this is really unprecedented.
Jun '12
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Not to mention the number of people who have given up looking for work. Many of them women.
Tell me again why the feminists support him? Oh, yeah, abortion.
Dec '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Gulf Oil Spill. The 100% corrupt method used to pass Obummercare. Bitter clingers. These are a few - a VERY few - of my least favorite things.
Jan '12
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
My personal choice for biggest lie (that the press must have known to be false), was the 'double, double counting of Medicare savings, to help finance Obamacare; outrageous!
Edited on November 4, 2012 at 12:22amNov '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Hard to count the ways. It's completely systemic.
How about his ability to start memes in the Bully Pulpit that are clearly false and yet are picked up and amplified by the media. Such as the "fair share" comments about a group of people already paying more than their share in taxes, and the ways he's characterized the behaviour of Replublicans in Congress, almost of of which is pure projection by him and the Democrats. In particular, that they are obstructionists. First, this is only true in a limited sense. Second, the press picks up on this and vilifies them -- and then they are silent when Harry Reid, the other day, essentially announces his intention to make that a basic modus operandi of a Democrat Senate if Romney wins. How do they live with themselves not calling this out?
Or, what about the very fact that he's continually even mentioning party politics in the BP. That should be like selling cars from the pulpit on Sunday morning. Where's the outrage? How many times has he used the phrase "...but the Republicans in Congress ..." from that podium?
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
R. Craigen: Hard to count the ways. It's completely systemic.
..... and the ways he's characterized the behaviour of Republicans in Congress, almost of of which is pure projection by him and the Democrats. In particular, that they are obstructionists. First, this is only true in a limited sense. Second, the press picks up on this and vilifies them -- and then they are silent when Harry Reid, the other day, essentially announces his intention to make that a basic modus operandi of a Democrat Senate if Romney wins. How do they live with themselves not calling this out?
I'm glad you brought this up. On CNBC, Jim Cramer et al. had a field day with Republican "obstructionism" - for months - never mentioning that Obama et. al. didn't reach out to or try to work with "Republicans in Congress" - that Obama and crew instead stereotpyed, misrepresented and demonized republican congresspeople. Obama never tried to pass a budget; he made speeches and took extravagant fund-raising tours instead.
May '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Think about it. Has the MSM held Obama's feet to the fire on ANYTHING? It began with the failure of Justice to investigate the Black Panthers intimidating voters, and it has continued through his failure to close Gitmo, his bump in the war in Afghanistan, Fast & Furious, the failure of his economic policies, the increased stature of America in the world, the continued rise of the oceans, .....everything. Some of the above list we may agree with, Gitmo, for example, but it was a violation of a campaign promise on which he skated.
It has made me realize that, as much as I hated the clear bias in much of the Bush Bashing, the media was at least doing its socially appointed job. The failure of the media to hold Obama accountable, and the concomitant decline in the fortunes of America at large, demonstrates how important their role in society is, and how poorly we all fare when they neglect that role.
I don't know if it is fixable in the legacy media. They've pretty much shot themselves in the foot. But, fortunately, the blogosphere has stepped up. If you want to find out, you can.
Jun '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
How about:
1. The promise to post all legislation on the internet for five days before signing it?
2. Jetting off to Denver immediately after the vote that "couldn't wait" and then waiting for five days to sign Obamacare?
3. Deamonizing GWB's anti-terror policies before the election, then retaining and expanding them all once elected?
4. How about the implicit promise that we could put race issues behind us? We're not post-racial; his administration is the MOST racial.
5. When exactly we're we supposed to see 5.6% unemployment again?
6. Sigh . . . .
Jun '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Weren't we supposed to be looking at an administration devoid of lobbyists?
What happened to the "most transparent administration ever"?
Where are the five million "green energy" jobs we were supposed to have by now?
Ask the folks in Manhattan if his promise to stop the rise of the oceans has panned out?
Jul '10
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Possibly the President's most annoying tics are his dauntless battle against armies of straw men, and his use of phrases like "experts say" and "everybody knows" to dispose of issues that are settled only in his own mind.
Members of the press should be ashamed of themselves for letting him get away with these things. But even more, they should be ashamed that they have continually allowed him the pretense that he is everything he is not.
He is not a uniter, he is a divider. He is not a moderate centrist, he is an entirely conventional modern liberal. He is not open to any good idea, no matter where it comes from; he is perfectly committed to his own progressive ideas and intentions. He is impervious to persuasion. In fact, as near as I can tell, he hasn't absorbed a new idea since he completed his college-era indoctrination.
President Obama is a poseur; his vaunted "moderation" is a convenient lie, one the press has seen fit not only to swallow but to perpetuate. Their behavior from his campaign through his presidency has been contemptible.
Re: Let Us Count the Ways the Obama Administration Has Been Given a Pass
Peter Christofferson:
He is not a uniter, he is a divider. He is not a moderate centrist, he is an entirely conventional modern liberal. He is not open to any good idea, no matter where it comes from; he is perfectly committed to his own progressive ideas and intentions. He is impervious to persuasion. In fact, as near as I can tell, he hasn't absorbed a new idea since he completed his college-era indoctrination.
So well said.....
Edited on November 4, 2012 at 3:04am