Please Read Frank Schaeffer's Post

Frank Schaeffer has a new post up today that is a must read for us all. He lists some of the accomplishments of the past year and reminds us all of how we felt just over a year ago at the time of the election and the inaugural

Some of the people on the left have been as damaging to President Obama as those on the right. Maybe even more. Now is not the time to abandon the President. Now is the time to rally around and support him even more or as much as we did before. Yet, that is what is happening. I have posted on this before and so has Frank.

Once again, he is asking people to stop and think about what they are doing, saying and thinking about before they run their mouths and put down the President, for not doing enough for them.

Read his post, which you can find by clicking here: Frank Schaeffer's Blog. And you can even leave him a comment and let him know what you think.

You can leave me one to if you are so inclined. He comes here sometimes and reads and comments when I link to him. Which I always appreciate.

So, take a minute to read his post and think before you put down the man we put in the White House. Thanks all.

Sick and Tired of the Infighting

I promised a new post last week… well here it is. It has taken me a while because I had to formulate it in my mind and in my heart before I could write it.

I have really been hurt and angry over some of the stuff I have seen and read. Oh the stuff from Jane Hamsher and some of the so called rabid left I have long come to expect. It is from so many of you, who have decided now that the President is a failure, he needs to fire his staff, you can’t support him unless he does this or that. He needs to be primaried in 2012, it just goes on and on.

Then the President does something you like and it is all roses again… You know that is what I have always heard called “Fair Weather Fans”.

It just seems you can’t make up your mind whether you like him or not. Now I am not saying you have to be his cheerleader constantly. But to call for a primary against him today, then praise him tomorrow. That is just a little over the top. No wonder the Republicans are getting such a foot hold with people.

When the Democrats can’t stand together, and stand behind our President, why would the Republican’s want to support him? Why would the Independent’s support him?

Just one of the things I saw everyone having a hissy fit over was the President’s proposal of a spending freeze. Everyone on the left was up in arms over this, without even knowing what he was fully considering. No one had read it, no one knew the details, they just knew it was a bad deal and so they attacked.

First it doesn’t take effect for another year. Second, it is very strictly targeted and will be just as he promised in the campaign, a scalpel, not a hatchet. It is not so much a freeze as a reorganization of the budget. He is going to take out programs that don’t work and waste money, and then use that money that is saved for programs that need it. That makes sense to me… How anyone can’t see this as a good thing doesn’t understand how budgets work.

Matt Osborne, at OsborneInk did a wonderful piece on this. Here is some of what he said about it and how everyone is reacting.

But perhaps this “move to the right” isn’t what it seems? Obama froze administration salaries, which doesn’t add up to much but certainly has the right optics. Noting that details are still unknown and the freeze will not affect health care reform or a second stimulus, Oliver Willis makes a strong argument that the oh noes are premature:
I don’t personally like the framing of these issues in one that favors conservatives, that is a fight versus government spending. Not at all, and in an ideal situation a Democratic president should laugh at the idea, knowing that everyone with common sense understands the long term value of government investment in the American economy and social safety net.
We do not live in this ideal world. We live in a world where, as I noted above, the people across the spectrum hold contradictory ideas within their own minds about what constitutes rational public policy. If some are concerned with spending, it seems the least harmful way to do this is to have a bone thrown their way that will actually lower *some* spending without harming the president’s domestic agenda.
Is it less perfect than a pony? Sure. Would President Jed Bartlett do it? Probably not, but real life isn’t a pitch-perfect Aaron Sorkin script and a fade out after 60 minutes of plot.
Put another way, I’d suggest that this is more of the same nuanced empiricism that makes lefties scream about “unclear” Afghanistan withdrawal dates and the public option. I’m willing to lay odds the whole thing will be forgotten a year from now — in fact, if the Senate passes a public option through reconciliation no one will be talking about this the next week.

Frank Schaeffer weighed in on this entire thing with his anger too, and I have to say he took you all to task much more than I did. But he was my inspiration. Here is Mr. Schaeffer's entire post.. It is almost a letter to you all... I would hope you read it and take it to heart.. Of course I believe some of you are suffering from the same syndrome as Limpballs has... Anticardiocitis... No heart.. That almost has to be what it is.. because you are the only opinion that matters and you can't see anything except what you write and you don't care what anyone else points out they are wrong and YOU are correct.

Anti-Obama Lefty Perfectionists Killed Us In MA
By Frank Schaeffer

Congratulations to the Left of the progressive movement and the Democratic Party: You just shot us all in the foot. You contributed to the Democratic loss in Massachusetts.

I’m a former Republican who ran from that hate-filled movement years ago. I am a heartfelt Obama supporter. And I am also and Independent Massachusetts voter.

I blame the ideological purist Left who have worked so hard to undermine the Obama presidency for the MA debacle. You set the stage.

The Left of the progressive movement couldn’t wait patiently for change. They wanted everything Now! They couldn’t ever see a glass half full and the possibility of improvement on the health care reform bill; it had to be prefect Now!

Gay rights moving ahead slowly weren’t fast enough! The fact that our president inherited the mess that landed on his desk didn’t move his Lefty critics to root for him, pray for him, and wait for him: No! It was “You’ve failed!” You’ve sold out to the banks! We're still at war! And all this only after less than 12 months in office!

Well, you got what you paid for. By giving aid and comfort to the extreme right – “See even his own supporters don’t trust him!” – You have emboldened the nuts. You also have sapped drip-by-drip the enthusiasm of Obama’s actual grass roots supporters (like me) who are not part of the "progressive elite".

You of the Obama-hating Left (yes I used that word -- hating) are both short-sighted and unrealistic.

Well, thanks ya’ll! See you in no-health care, no-gay rights, eternal-dumb-wars Sarah Palin’s America.

Now, I believe he told us how he really felt.. But he is correct.. If we keep this up.. We are opening up the door for all the Palin's, and the Republican's to get back in power.. Already according to the polls, people seem to want the Republican's to take the Congress back... Is this what YOU WANT? Keep up the good work.. That's what is going to happen.

I can’t remember this kind of wishy-washy attitude about a President before. Even when Bill Clinton was confronted with Monica, then impeached, people stood behind him. They supported him. No one, and I mean no one, was fighting and shouting he should do this and do that, he should fire this one or fire that one, he should step down.. Well except Republican’s. But NOT DEMOCRAT’S. The Democrat’s stood with him, oh there were some who didn’t… but the people… common people rallied around Bill Clinton.. Why are we not rallying around Pres. Obama?

No other President has ever.. Let me repeat that… NO OTHER PRESIDENT has ever faced the problems that Pres. Obama has faced this first year. NONE. Everyone he inherited from his predecessor. From 2 wars, both mismanaged, to a terrible recession, the worst since the great depression, to rising unemployment, which is being corrected by the actions of this President.

Pres. Obama has done more for this country in the first year, than most have done in 4 or 8 years. Yet no one gives him credit for it. He has brought us back from the brink of disaster, he has slowed unemployment by 10%, from 700,000 + a month to way less than that. Yes, we still have lots of people out of work, but it is much better than it was. He is honoring the agreement made to bring all the troops home from Iraq, in fact the Marines are leaving now, and all combat troops are to be out by the end of August. He has followed through on his planned escalation of the war in Afghanistan, much to the dismay of some of you, who wanted him to pull out of there. However he did say he was going to do just this.

Plus the list of accomplishments legislatively he has gotten done… all with little to NO Republican support, is very good. He has had a VERY GOOD 1st YEAR.

Andrew Sullivan and Frank Schaeffer Both are Supporting the President.

Once again I am quoting from Frank Schaeffer who is asking everyone to read Andrew Sullivan. The piece Sully has in the Atlantic is really a must read, especially for all of you who are so critical of our President.

Just as Frank's piece I posted earlier was, this is an answer to some of you.. I hope you will read it with open eyes and an open mind and not be a critic. Remember, Sully until recently, was a Conservative, or that's what he called himself. In other words, a member of the GOP. He was a Reaganite. But this is what he has to say:

From Frank Schaeffer:Re Obama, responses to my pro-Obama piece, and responses to the responses.... etc. Note that Andrew Sullivan says it well in the Atlantic. So rather than go back through everything again and again for the Obama critics here it is from Sullivan. (The Atlantic Dec 23, 09).


Meep Meep, The Daily Dish

By Andrew Sullivan

My own view is that 2009 has been an extraordinarily successful year for Obama. Since this is currently a minority view and will prompt a chorus of "In The Tank!", allow me to explain.

The substantive record is clear enough. Torture is ended, if Gitmo remains enormously difficult to close and rendition extremely hard to police. The unitary executive, claiming vast, dictatorial powers over American citizens, has been unwound. The legal inquiries that may well convict former Bush officials for war crimes are underway, and the trial of KSM will reveal the lawless sadism of the Cheney regime that did so much to sabotage our war on Jihadism. Military force against al Qaeda in Pakistan has been ratcheted up considerably, even at a civilian cost that remains morally troubling. The US has given notice that it intends to leave Afghanistan with a bang - a big surge, a shift in tactics, and a heavy batch of new troops. Iraq remains dodgy in the extreme, but at least March elections have been finally nailed down.

Domestically, the new president has rescued the banks in a bail-out that has come in at $200 billion under budget; the economy has shifted from a tailspin to stablilization and some prospect of job growth next year; the Dow is at 10,500 a level no one would have predicted this time last year. A stimulus package has helped undergird infrastructure and probably did more to advance non-carbon energy than anything that might have emerged from Copenhagen. Universal health insurance (with promised deficit reduction!) is imminent - a goal sought by Democrats (and Nixon) for decades, impossible under the centrist Clinton, but won finally by a black liberal president. More progress has been made in unraveling the war on drugs this past year than in living memory. The transformation of California into a state where pot is now more available than in Amsterdam is as remarkable as the fact that such new sanity has spread across the country and is at historic highs, so to speak, in the opinion polls. On civil rights, civil marriage came to the nation's capital city, which has a 60 percent black population. If that doesn't help reverse some of the gloom from Prop 8 and Maine, what would? And, yes, the unspeakable ban on HIV-positive foreigners was finally lifted, bringing the US back to the center of the global effort to fight AIDS as it should be.

Relations with Russia have improved immensely and may yield real gains in non-proliferation; Netanyahu has moved, however insincerely, toward a two-state solution; Iran's coup regime remains far more vulnerable than a year ago, paralyzed in its diplomacy, terrified of its own people and constantly shaken by the ongoing revolution; Pakistan launched a major offensive against al Qaeda and the Taliban in its border area; global opinion of the US has been transformed; the Cairo speech and the Nobel acceptance speech helped explain exactly what Obama's blend of ruthless realism for conflict-management truly means.

The Beltway cannot handle all this. And that's why they continue to jump on every micro-talking-point and forget vast forests for a few failing saplings.

But when you consider the magnitude of shifting from one conservative era to one in which government simply has to be deployed to tackle deep structural problems, the achievement is as significant as his election year.

I remain, in other words, extremely bullish on the guy. There is a huge amount to come - finding a way to bring down long-term debt, ensuring health insurance reform stays on track and reformed constantly to control costs, turning the corner on non-carbon energy, reforming entitlements, finding a new revenue stream like a VAT, preventing Israel from attacking Iran, preventing Iran's coup regime from going even roguer, withdrawing from an Iraq still teetering on new sectarian conflict, avoiding a second downturn, closing Gitmo for good, ending the gay ban in the military ... well, you get the picture.

Change of this magnitude is extremely hard. That it is also frustrating, inadequate, compromised, flawed, and beset with bribes and trade-offs does not, in my mind, undermine it. Obama told us it would be like this - and it is. And those who backed him last year would do better, to my mind, if they appreciated the difficulty of this task and the diligence and civility that Obama has displayed in executing it.

Yes, we have. And yes, we still are the ones we've been waiting for - if we still care enough to swallow purism and pride and show up for the less emotionally satisfying grind of real, practical, incremental reform.

Again, we have to look at the big picture.. WE aren't always going to agree with everything the President says or does, but for the most part I still think he has done very well this year. Remember he has only the Congress we elected for him to work with. He still has to contend with Traitor Joe, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and all the rest of the DINO's in the Senate.

Even with them fighting him, he has still managed to rack up a pretty impressive record.

Remember, open mind, open heart.

Oh and Merry Christmas everyone.

Frank Schaeffer Weighs in Again

I have been sitting on this for a couple of days. Frank Schaeffer is one of my favorite reads. He writes at Huffington Post and he also has his own blog. I don't read much on Huff Post anymore, but I do check out his blog. You can get there by clicking on his name above, but I am posting this article in full here.. I am also going to post Andrew Sullivan's latest from The Atlantic. It is more or less a response to Frank's and is very good. But here is Frank:

Obama Will Triumph — So Will America

Before he’d served even one year President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. Why?-- because he is succeeding.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.

Obama’s steady supporters will be proved right. Obama’s critics will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition – from both the right and left.

As the President’s poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election.

The left’s lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling “prophecy”-- snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was his fault:

# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries

# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral

# The worst economic crisis since the depression

# America’s standing in the world at the lowest point in history

# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war

# A health care system in free fall

# An educational system in free fall

# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)

# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left

# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration…

And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President’s desk!

“Help” from the Right?

What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans were reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to “help” our new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn’t a real American, didn’t have an American birth certificate, wasn’t born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist", was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted “death panels” to kill the elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized “tea parties” to sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) “commentators” from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: “No!”

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!

“Help” from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he’d inherited from the worst president in modern history!

Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President’s economic policies had “failed” before the President even instituted them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually minuets of the President taking office, they’d been “betrayed”! (Never mind that Obama’s vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president’s has been. Never that mind he signed a new hate crimes law!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how "disappointed" they were that they’d not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the “change”? Contrary to their expectations they were still mere mortals!

And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay attention for longer than a nanosecond… “Governing”?! What the hell does that world, uh, like mean?”

The President’s critics left and right all had one thing in common: impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn’t imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their president. He hadn’t consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!

The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality defining their ideas—say, about what is possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that voted Bush into office… twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community – in just 12 short months -- President Obama:

#Continued the draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Restored America’s image around the globe
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and patience
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to “water the tree of liberty”…
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR -- President Obama “failed”! Other than that he didn’t “live up to expectations”!

Who actually has failed...

...are the Americans that can’t see the beginning of a miracle of national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned “news” into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.

Here’s the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty “supporters” or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.

Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, depending on your point of view) to everyone!

PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president please pass this on and hang in there!

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of “Patience With God – Faith For People Who Don’t Like Religion (Or Atheism).”

Frank may be contacted at Frankschaeffer.com

Frank Schaeffer Calls out the Right and the Left

I think it is time we all, and I do mean ALL of us paid a little attention to what he is saying. After the breach at the White House the other night.. it is getting very serious out there.

People are calling for outright WAR against this President... and we have people on the Left side of politics criticizing him almost as much as ones on the right, if not more. Because they don't think he is moving fast enough, or he isn't doing what they want as they think he should.

There is a billboard up not far from my house calling for an armed revolution against the "Government". It has the quote on it... "Live Free or Die". If I can get a picture I will... but it is hard when it is on Interstate 70 in a pretty high traffic area.

This segment of Rachel is a few days old... but Frank makes some very valid points and if you haven't seen it... you need to watch it.. if you have.. maybe you need to watch it again.. and really LISTEN to what he says.

I may not agree with everything the President says or does.. but to rail against him publicly is to align yourself with the RWNJ's. Is that what you want? Because that's what I think when I read your postings and stuff... Just think about it with an open mind and see what you think. No I am not saying you have to be all love and roses all the time... but temper your thoughts a little. Don't be so negative and critical.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

More on the Max Blumenthal Book From Frank Schaeffer

Sunday I posted a video from Democracy Now with an interview of Max Blumenthal about his new book Republican Gommorah. It is a must see and the book is a must read.

Rachel Maddow has been talking with Frank Schaeffer quite often about the Republican's and the Religious Right and the fringe of the party and how polarized they have become. The group at "C" Street that Jeff Sharlet has written about that has been on Rachel's show quite often lately and I have written about is part of that group.

So is James Dobson of the Focus on the Family fame. You know that name of course, if for no other reason, than he endorsed Sarah Palin, remember, not John McCain, but Sarah Palin.

Frank has a new blog up and in his post today he writes about Max's book. Of course Frank knows the religious right very well, since he was one of the founders of it. We can't really call him a founding father, but he is a founding son...lol

One of the best parts of Frank's piece today was this little gem...

But with a few exceptions (like my late father) most of the people described in Blumenthal's book have no "other side" to them. They are the sick bedrock of what, at any moment, may become a full-blown American fascism. (Sharlet has done great work on showing how these Religious Right folks have also invaded the US Military, especially the chaplaincy ranks.)

My one -- very slight -- criticism of Republican Gomorrah is that Blumenthal neglected to do something that would have bolstered his arguments and given them deeper credibility: introduce a bit of paradox and nuance into his book. He could have made a better case for the left by frankly looking at some of the extremism on the left that has played into the hands of the cynics who control the Religious Right

-snip-

Why should Blumenthal's book to be taken seriously? Take it from this former "insider" he knows what he's talking about. His thesis is less about politics than about the deviant psychology that people like Dobson have cashed in on by feeding delusion, victimhood and failure as a means through which to build a political movement. What Blumenthal reveals is the heart of the most dysfunctional and truly dangerous -- not to mention armed -- darkest reaches of our country.

What should we "do"? Read the book! Then fight like hell to keep Republicans out of power come what may. And maybe (note to progressives!) be a little less critical of President Obama and a little more grateful that he's in the White House!

Once in a while a book comes along about which one can say: If you love our country read this! Republican Gomorrah is one such book. One other thing: if you know any sane Republicans that would like to save what's left of their party beg them to read this book. If you have to beg them in the name of Jesus!

Of course that is my emphasis, but I felt it needed to be pointed out, we have been so critical of Pres. Obama lately. You can read the rest of Frank's blog by going here to Frank Schaeffer. He calls this entry, At Last Dobson is Done in by the Truth.

Frank has done several other really great blog posts and I have mentioned him before. As I said he has been on Rachel's show several times, and he is a great source for all things in the religious field.

With the problems facing our country, with the attacks on our President, now more than ever we need to learn and understand what is going on with the people on the right side of politics. This is something we can do by reading, studying and watching these people. This book by Max is just one more example of the things we are up against.

Be advised, this is a fight, a fight for our lives, for our jobs, for our country. Look what was done to Van Jones, look what they have done to the Health Care Reform battle. Look at the fight we are facing for the ACES bill to even get past committee in the Senate... All because of the so called religious right fighting it.

That's what we are fighting... and we have to be informed to fight and win... So it's time to start preparing. It's a scary thought, but we can't let them win... we have to stand strong and keep fighting them.

My Comments on the Comments

A commenter told me he was disappointed in Pres. Obama and his list is included. I wanted a chance to refute his claims as to why he was disappointed and see what it was and if I could make him happier. Here is his list.. I will try to answer them after.. Please leave anything you would like to add in the comments.. Thanks all.


• Obama was anti-Iraq war when Bush started it, but he has been way too slow shutting it down.

He is still Anti-Iraq war and is following his time line and the time line he was given by the commanders and by the SOFA. Actually I believe they are going to be out sooner than they planned even so. It does take time to move men and equipment out of battle. It would be nice to be able to just say "Come Home" and they all magically appear.. but it doesn't work that way...

• Obama has expanded the foolish Afghanistan war. What are we accomplishing there?

This was something he said he was going to do.. There is nothing here that is new or not stated all along. Why are you surprised over this. He ALWAYS said he would do this. It was his intent all along to escalate the war in Afghanistan. He never hinted, stated or implied anything to the contrary.

• Obama has not shut down Gitmo, and has continued Bush rendition policies. A detainee has recounted recent torture under the Obama administration. Obama has continued Bush detention and torture policies.

No, he hasn't continued the torture policies. That is just not true. He is shutting down Gitmo and if he had been allowed to do it it would have been done. Congress is the one who blocked him, by refusing to grant him the money needed to get it closed. To lay all this on the President is just wrong. As for renditions, yes, but they weren't just Bush policies, those have been in place since Eisenhower.. They are policy going back years and years. Nothing is going to change them, I am afraid. Now they are just more in the open.

• Obama has been way too wimpy in this health care reform fight. He ought to tell the Blue Dogs to get on board or else, the way Bush or LBJ would have done. There's one instance where he should have followed Bush's example. I'm afraid his bipartisan stance is going to allow the Republicans to win.

Did you read my earlier post at all?.. He is doing much better than LBJ did when he passed Medicare. To say he is doing better is trying to rewrite History and is just plain wrong. LBJ got a mediocre bill passed and then with add ons later we got a decent bill that made Medicare what it is today. To say he has been way too wimpy is just being silly and rather obtuse.

• His economic recovery gave billions -- trillions to the banks without helping the little guy at all. The banks responded by tightening the screws on their credit card customers and giving huge tax paid bonuses to their top execs.

His economic recovery?? That started under BUSH... here we go rewriting history again. Remember that was in September of 2008, and there was nothing that Barack Obama could do except vote for or against it, he was still candidate Obama at that time. Since then yes, after the election he has had a little hand in some of this, and most of his policies have been geared toward Main Street.

Where's the Change We Can Believe In? Obama is even distancing himself now from Eric Holder's prosecution of Bush's War Criminals. He opposed publication of more torture photos. Bush's people did things we executed Nazis and Japanese for. Obama would rather let it slide. I am puzzled by Obama. He is a Constitutional scholar. I just don't get it.

This last one, I answered at your blog but will do it again here, Yes, Pres. Obama has distanced himself from AG Holder and the prosecution of any and all war crimes. That is considered Separation of Powers and is defined in the Constitution. He should do that. To do anything less than that would be to become more like Bush and that's not what we want. That's what Bush did.. was to circumvent the Constitution and politicize the Attorney General's Office, yet you are asking him to do just exactly that. Sorry, but that's not what I voted for and that's not what I would want him to do.

I hope I answered your questions and helped you some. I am not the only one who feels this President has done well so far and is getting a bum rap. There are several others who feel the same way.

I think there are a lot of people who are jumping on the Obama has failed bandwagon very early in this presidency. And for some reason they are on the left side of politics. Frank Schaeffer sees the same thing. Here is his take on it:

The Left Is Also Obama's Problem
Can the left learn to keep its mouth shut once in a while? Does the American left know how to win wars or just skirmishes? Does the left want change or does it demand perfection? You can't have both in this life.

No one has been a tougher critic of the Republican Party, the Religious Right and various wing nuts out to destroy the Obama presidency than me. Few ordinary Americans (that I know of) have taken more heat (and hate) for their support of the President than me either. Former right wing religious right leaders like me are never forgiven for joining the reality-based community!

Believe me, with my old "friends" on the right I don't need more enemies! (Just check out Fox News smearing of me last week with insanely out-of-context clips on the O'Reilly Factor lifted and edited from Maddow interviewing me.) So I'm hesitant to knock the left. I guess I don't like the idea of all sides pissed off with me at once. But in the light of how and why the debate over health care is being dominated by the loony right maybe the left is partly to blame for the stalemate on health care reform.

Last week the New York Times noted a lack of enthusiasm on the part of Obama's former foot soldiers when it comes to rising to the occasion and pouring on the support for health care reform. ("Health Debate Fails to Ignite Obama's Grass Roots," August 15.) Why the lack of enthusiasm?

It's because the left has made the classic mistake of going for a whole loaf and therefore risking getting nothing. The left has proved itself as impatient as the right and just as shortsighted, given that the lefty sniping at the Obama administration started almost from day one. And now after barely six months in office the people who worked so hard to get him elected have seemingly lost their enthusiasm for another fight on behalf of Obama.

What sapped the yes-we-can optimistic, hope-filled bedrock supporters' will? Who sapped it?

There is a connection between sniping from the left -- the drip, drip, drip of criticism, the demand for instant perfection, be it from those taking shots Obama's economic policy and claiming that the President is in the hip pocket of Wall Street -- and those saying he cut some sort of evil deal with pharmaceutical companies, and the lop-sided "debate" on health care. The right didn't sap anyone's will who voted for Obama. The left shot itself in the foot.

It seems to me that Obama's critics on the left just don't understand governing. If Franklin Roosevelt had had this quality of "support" from his bedrock constituency there would have been no New Deal and we would have never entered the war to defeat fascism. In fact today's left seems to have a death wish of exercising the "right" to snarky frivolity when it's time to get serious.

The American left has a choice: follow our moderately progressive Democrat president and support him when he most needs it most, or allow our whole project to be derailed by the far (increasingly fascist) right. If it is derailed, sure -- the Republicans played a part. But so did the know-it-all left, all because the left's pontificators -- including those right here in the Huffington Post -- would rather be heard than humbly offer their support to our President (or anyone else) and see change actually happen.

Why?

It strikes me that the left suffers from a sort of crazy First Amendment knee-jerk twitch comparable the the right's sick Second Amendment twitch! The right thinks it must collect guns, the left thinks it must express opinions, and damn the real world consequences. Hey, so Obama fails! Well at least I got my say!

The right is irredeemably sick. The left is just silly. Together the silly and the sick may just do us in. If Limbaugh gets his Obama-must-fail wish, look in the mirror.

On the right the election literally broke their racist brains. This is now the day of the old angry white men once again. And how has the left responded? Did we circle the wagons and hang tough with our young black president? No everyone waded in.

The open question is this: Is the left going to be dominated by its talkers or get on with governance that can only happen with near infinite patience and loyal support? Does the left know how to follow a leader and get something done?

Q: "You mean I have to behave like a regular citizen once in a while and let the people I elect do their job?!"

A: If our self-styled free thinkers decide loyalty is beneath them and have forgotten how to compromise and live in the real world, a few election cycles from now the left is going to find itself reduced to screaming down their far right opposition at town hall meetings.

We have a great president. We have a chance for real change and we'd better use it. Sarah Palin and company are waiting in the wings.

My old friends on the far right are counting on the stupidity of right wing white America to believe their lies. They are also counting on the left being so in love with the sound of its own voice that the left can't govern.

How different things would be right now had everyone who voted for President Obama stuck by him and his administration with total determination, and waited until he had a chance to implement -- and test -- his programs, before wading in with the nit-picking.

The left faces the implacable and loony right. The chips are down. Support the President.

And once again, from one of my favorite bloggers, Bob Cesca, and if you don't read him you really should.. he says this.. and this was a couple of weeks ago:

The Republicans, talk radio and Fox News are fabricating off-the-wall lies practically on a daily basis. The Healther crazies are mobilized by corporate lobbyists. Blue Dogs are holding up progress. The corporate press is all but signing the death sentence for Healthcare Reform 2009. And the public option? Jesus H, I long for the days when we were just fighting for that -- now it looks like we'll be lucky to get any sort of healthcare reform in general.

So what do we do when these enemies are so well defined and screaming out for razor-sharp counterattacks?

Why, we're liberals and progressives. We attack each other, of course!

For example, four of the eight Recommended Diaries on Daily Kos are screeds attacking the administration. I don't know quite what to make of this dynamic, but the overall narrative seems skewed and misguided right now. I can say for certain that, whether justified or not, there's a time and a place for everything, and, right now, there are a clear set of opposition targets and they're ripe for the picking.

Adding... To clarify, I don't have any problem with being critical of the Obama administration or holding him accountable. I've gone down that road many times. And I will probably flip my shit if he signs a healthcare reform bill without the public option. However, what drives me insane is this exaggerated whiny "he's betraying us!" or "he's just like Bush!" horseshit.

Bob goes on in that post to site this list, which comes from a commenter at DailyKos called jonnie rae..

He stabilized the markets, so 401Ks are starting to slowly come back and we are not about to meltdown anymore.

Unemployment numbers are coming down dramatically from when he took over.

GDP went from 6.5 shrinkage to 1 shrinkage since he has been in office.

Tens of thousands of state employees still have jobs, and services are maintained because of his stimulus.

He ended torture.

He IS closing Gitmo.

95% of Americans are receiving a tax DECREASE.

He provided unemployment, food stamps and a 65% reduction in Cobra for those who lost their jobs.

He set new emissions standards.

He protected wilderness land set for oil leases.

He got Pakistan to agree to fight the Taliban, which Bush never could. The top leader was taken out this week.

He nominated and got confirmed the first latina Supreme Court Justice in history.

He signed Equal Pay for Equal Work, Children's Health Bill and Credit Card Reform.

He has a first time home owner's credit, a modification of mortgage plan in place. (This needs work, but it is in place)

He has made it easier for students to get college loans. (UMass just gave a 1500 rebate to all students because of the stimulus money.)

He has improved America's image around the world, especially with Muslim countries.

He got the 2 NK journalists out.

He got the non-proliferation treaties going again, and he will chair the next meeting. Already an agreement exists to reduce Russia's and US's arms.

A significant amount of the bailout money is being paid back. This is a good thing.

He has taken on healthcare, the most difficult thing to pass in the US. I am not completely happy with how he is doing it, but he is doing it.*

He ended the abstinence only thing. And the law that said a pharmacist could refuse to give birth control pills to women if they so chose.

He is sticking to the timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq.

He got funding for the useless bomber cut.And those heliocoptors. He plans to make more weapons' cuts.

He has cut 2 trillion from the budget over the next ten years.

He has taken on energy, the second most difficult thing to pass in the US and it has already passed the House.

He saved the American auto industry. (Cash for clunkers is doing great too, both for the industry and jobs, and for the environment.)

He is building a green economy for the US. First steps in the stimulus, others in the energy bill.

More jobs will be created in transportation when rest of stimulus kicks in in 2010.

He is facing complete disrespect and vilification from the media and the wingnuts,getting more than 30 death threats per day,and still goes on, calmly and with determination and intelligence.

* He has no champions in the Senate, only a small group of obstructionists who seem to have been given all the power by Harry Reid. The insurance industry has convinced people that he is Hitler; and this is only the beginning. If Pharma gets into it, what do you think will happen to healthcare? They have way more money than the insurance companies. You want him to fight all the corporate interests which actually OWN this country, including the Senate and Congress,and you want him to do that virtually alone? The left has attacked him almost from day one. The right is throwing the kitchen sink right now.

Now, if this isn't enough there is also this article from the Washington Monthly and Steve Benen who quotes E.J. Dionne and they are talking about how Pres. Obama is not getting the credit he deserves for the financial crisis and how he handled it.

It is a great read and you should check it out. They lay it out that Bush got credit for how he handled 9-11 even though he mis-handled it before hand.

He also quotes Ezra Klein who states that because Pres. Obama didn't let the crisis get out of hand and stopped it before it went out of control people don't realize exactly what he did.

Those are my thoughts and some thoughts of others around the web.. let me know what you think. Tell me and we can fix this together..

Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican)

Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican)

Another great letter from Frank Schaeffer, who supported Pres. Obama and I posted about before. After appearing on DL Hughley's show he decided he needed to address the Republicans directly so he wrote them a letter. I have to wonder if they can read it though, since it is written in plain English.

You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created.

See, plain English, pulls no punches...lol I love the part where he says, "You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created". Isn't that the truth? Not only that but the media seems determined to assist in this lately.

President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited. I say economic and military cataclysm because without the needless war in Iraq you all backed we would not be in the economic mess we're in today. If that money had been spent here at home on renovating our infrastructure, taking us toward a green economy, putting our health-care system in order we'd be a very different situation.

Again, he really puts it out there and lets them have it.. looks like he knows of what he speaks, doesn't he? He says in the letter he removed himself from the rolls of the Republican Party in 2000, and re-registered as an Independent. All because of W. Boy, that can say a lot can't it...and that was before he even started destroying the country....lol

Just imagine where America would be today if the 14 to 20 million voters -- "the rube base" who slavishly follow the likes of Limbaugh -- had not voted as a block year after year thus empowering the Republican fiasco. We would have a regulated banking industry and would have avoided our current financial crisis; some 4000 of our killed military men and women would be alive; over to 35,000 wounded Americans would be whole; we would have been leaders in the environmental movement; we would be in the middle of a green technology boom fueling a huge expansion of our economy and stopping our dependence on foreign oil, and our health-care system would be reformed.

Wow.. what else needs to be said.. well just maybe one other little point that he might like to make here.

The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.

The rest is just as good. If you didn't see his appearance on DL Hughley, it is on here or it is part of this link at HuffPost, which is linked to this. It is really a great watch. Even though Frank Schaeffer was raised as part of the religious right, he is still a wonderful spokesperson for Pres. Obama.

He has seen the error of the ways of the Republicans and is calling them out on it and is willing to speak openly and loudly to them and to everyone about it. As you can see he pulls no punches. It's about time someone tells the truth to these liars.