Inevitable: The Oba-drop

The bigger they are, so on and so forth. It was always just a matter of time, especially as he's so liberal. Now, the fun really starts and I'm not sure how he is going to handle it.

Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama's stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

He's been called arrogant and in some ways, he is. All the positive media has built a sense of infallibility around him, which was always constructed from some pretty thin air. The ability to deliver a good speech won't counter bad news, or policies that Americans opt to reject.

Falling popularity means your opposition gets fired up and becomes emboldened. And Democrats being craven politicians, just like Republicans, will not hesitate to cut and run if it gets bad enough. We know that about them all too well.

He's going to need good news, when the trend is for more bad. And while the people around him have shown themselves to be skilled in campaigning, managing messaging while governing is an entirely different thing. This is also a gaffe prone group, perhaps bred of previous success born of good fortune, almost as much as skill.

I wouldn't underestimate them. That's always a mistake. But the Obama we start to see going forward will not be the one we've been looking at all along. Can he overcome his lack of experience to prevail? He'll need to grow up and into the office and he hasn't done that, yet.

Comments

[Plumpplumber(balding)]

Once the little boy said the emperor was naked, the gig was up! When a marxist is drug out kicking into the sunlight, well, buyers remorse ain't cover that. When the whores of the MSM discover their Ooover has led them down the path, all the sudden the info we should have had BEFORE the election will finally come out.?

[mark l.]

"15. Which of these statements comes closer to your view: (Beneath it all, Obama is an old-style, tax-and-spend Democrat) OR (Obama is a new-style Democrat who will be careful with the public's money)."

is this a serious poll question?

the numbers provided:
43% think he is "old-style", while 52% see him as "new style".

funny...the old style def offers tax and spend, two things that obama is doing more than any past president, but people would rather call him "new style"?

whatever, just so long as the keep calling him a democrat...

the implication being made is that even the WaPo has a low opinion of democrats, so they offer obama is not like other democrats.

[DINORight]

"He's going to need good news, when the trend is for more bad."

Personally, I foresee another manufactured crisis to distract the masses, allowing the villans in Washington to do a stealth passing of Dear Leader's agenda. That is their MO, to-date.

[ac halle]

Jesus...
"Grow Up"?
This fuckball moron is so stupid, as are/is his idiot handlers........I would suggest SHOW UP GROW UP on agreat big 5(that would be f.i.v.e/by F.I.V.E. hello demos) Plackard.
Slam the the thing on their heads and send them to the middle east, for a bit of breakfast.
The abject stupidity that reigns now is simply magnificent.
Davey Jones awaits.
Arms open.
Legs wide.
Hussein, you REALLY have accompished the impossible.
Stick that badge up your 1/2 ass.

[Anon]

Relying on the media to all of a sudden 'wake up' about Obama is a fool's errand. It is not going to happen.

Although it couldn't have been stated in a more crude way, Rush was right...if Obama does NOT fail, e.g. if the stimulus works or is perceived to work, if universal health care works or is perceived to work, then the country will be even further down the path to destruction than we already are....if these programs fail or are perceived to fail then Obama and the Democrats world view that big government can fix anything if only given enough money and time, will again be discredited for another decade or so.

However, it is my opinion that the stimulus is too large and amorphous to be categorized as a failure, if the media tells the public that it was a success, they will believe it. Obama will claim it succeeded even if it fails to create one single job, the ONLY way the stimulus is seen as a failure is if the economy remains completely flatlined or further declines.

The health care program will EVENTUALLY be seen as a failure because, unlike the stimulus, it will impact every American, so people will know, first hand, whether their health care experience is better or worse than it was before "Medicare for All" was put in place. Unfortunately, the reality is not going to set for many years, and by that time the new uber-bureaucracy will already be in place.

[Peg C.]

Am I the only one avoiding seeing or hearing this malevolent con artist? Rush just played Obama and Pelosi clips at chipmonk speed. Much better! Wastes less of our time and you don't hear their real, detestable voices while they peddle their lies.

[anon]

I feel the same way about Obama as I felt about Bush, listening to anything he says is only an invitation to rage at the level of bs and false and misleading statements that are made.

I forget who said that the people will always get the government they deserve...but he was right.

[wolfwalker]

Now, the fun really starts and I'm not sure how he is going to handle it.

I am. Eventually he and his fellow orcs will decide to push through their socialist agenda anyway, on the theory that:

a) by election time next year, enough of the stimulus spending will be paying off that people will think the economy is in fact improving; and

b) even if they're wrong and they lose big in the midterm elections, they'll retain enough of a powerbase in Congress to kill any attempt to repeal these bills. Remember, as long as Gothmog is in the White House, he'll veto any repeal. And they only need one-third in either house to kill a veto override.

[mark l.]

"I feel the same way about Obama as I felt about Bush"

surely you don't believe the scale of bs is equivalent. I'm not happy to see bush get pegged with 5 trillion in debt, but find modest mitigation in the recession/dot com bust, 9/11, katrina, financing two wars, oil spike, massive failure of the financial system, and the housing bust.

obamanomics already is giving us 10 trillion in debt, assuming no further pitfalls, which seems to ignore the fact inevitably occur.

somehow, I don't see history even attempting to find equivalence in absolute ineptitude.
if obama "achieves" everything he has forecast, he will have crippled the nation like no other president.

[money]

True wolfwalker:

On the other hand, killing any liberal budget or forcing government shut down will reduce spending and starve out the giant pork projects. With a little coaxing, some of the blue dogs may defect like Spector. At any rate, fillabust fillabust fillabust! Congress could take a lesson from pres. Andy Jackson, law or not, you don't have to fund it. They hold the purse strings and remember, this guy wants to,"Talk" to his foes. Keep the chosen one talking. He likes to hear himself and gets little done. His monolaguing and apologising has strengthened the positions of dictators in our part of the world. For the sake of the country, we should exploit this flaw.

[TruthHurts]

"He'll need to grow up and into the office and he hasn't done that, yet.".... It's pretty funny how we get these typical "not ready" lines from conservative chattering class...As usual, the "Conservatives" cling to their profound rejection of the fact that nearly seventy-million-Americans voted for Obama in 2008 (And most voted without even seeing the birth certificate!)....While I accept that the paranoid "faithful" are continually poised in perpetual anti-Obama rhetoric; I still can't believe how overtly patronizing, the "loyal opposition" continues to show itself to be....Whatever you think about POTUS 44, the GOP won't make any ground up until it shows itself to be a thoughtful and serious party...Obama is the first "grown up" who's occupied the Whitehouse since H.W Bush was there. He's "grown up" enough to take on serious issues without shying away AND..he's "grown up" enough to stick to priorities while resisting the urge to take "a hike along the Appalachian trail"....Seriously, are we THAT threatened by the fact that we've had someone other than a white male, as the "leader of the free world" for all of six months?!..The author should refrain from the "grow up" nonsense and oppose Obama on the issues...Stop with the pathetically transparent attempt to try to put the President "in his place". Americans have already DECIDED on where his place should be -- it's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[Anon]

Yes, I do believe the scale of bs is absolutely equivalent, in fact, I could make a pretty good argument that the scale and scope of Bush Administration bs was larger and more widespread, in that I believe on some issues, though peripheral, Obama is taking a more fact based approach.

The IMPACT of the lies and bs is not equivalent, and in this I agree, that Obama as so far been more destructive to the U.S. in six months than Bush was in 8 years, and I would not have believed that was even in the realm of plausibility let alone possibility.

Conservatives are on the wrong side of history, America is at the degeneracy/decline stage of its power trajectory, and there is nothing much any conservative can do except slow down the inevitable.

[mark l.]

sorry,
borrowing 5 trillion to pay for what we cannot afford, is not he same as borrowing 10 trillion.

the graphs of debt to gdp, and actual growth of gdp are going to be staggering. They won't even have to put the years on the x-axis, because everyone will know who was responsible. finding bush's econmic record will be easy, in the sense that it will represent the lull, before the explosion.

obama is openly saying that he hopes to have the deficit under 700 billion, in his last year in office. eight years in office, and this is his goal?

if nothing else, bush could at least find buyers for our debt, and these buyers were the impartial judges of our prosperity. When obama can no longer find buyers, his economic transgressions will become evident, even to you, anon.

[d_nab]

"Stick to priorities"? "Grown up"? You have to be kidding. You can't push through billions of dollars of spending, responsibly, without a lot more input, from both sides; Attempting to 'scare' We The People, with lies and exaggerations; pandering to the entitlement bunch{es} by destroying businesses, large and small; Ignoring the many knowledgeable specialists who show that the numbers DO NOT ADD UP; promoting the Union agendas, to the detriment of many basic tenants of the REAL working people; stumping around the country, instead of being in DC, at his desk, and WORKING. There are plenty of Dems, who are NOT convinced by any means. We need lots of governmental reforms, but NONE include LARGER government in my book. There is nothing in the least responsible and grown up about this current process; no checks and balances; no True representation of probably some 80% of Americans. "Thoughtful and serious", yes, about socialism and as fast as possible. Great, another cool-aid drinker.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

[Anon]

I'm well aware of his economic transgressions and that his policies are going to further erode our economy.

But, I don't think the fact that Bush could find buyers for debt whereas some time in the next couple of decades at least, that market will dry up is much of a positive for Bush because the economy was still basically pumped up on worthless paper.

BOTH PARTIES have bought into the stupid idea of the 'information economy' and BOTH PARTIES have bought into the idea that 'free trade' is a cure-all and that it will always be a net positive for the U.S.

BOTH PARTIES sat idly by and twiddled their thumbs while the U.S. manufacturing base was gutted and while a total bizarre Wall Street world where 'earnings' and 'value' were divorced from any kind of actual reality in terms of tangible assets. Google is worth more than IBM. Okay dokey.

And it was the Bush Administration that basically gave the go ahead for the post dom.com post 9/11 fed policy that revved up the economy on super cheap credit. The Bush Administration also wrongly endorsed the idea of adding a new "right" to the American canon that of everyone having the right to own a house whether they could pay for it or not.

No, the economic downturn is not "Bush's fault" because all of the trends were in place for at least the last 20 years and were basically endorsed by both parties. However, let's not gloss over the economic mistakes that were made by Bush which helped feed the fire.

And now, Obama is throwing gasoline on that fire, though he doesn't know it.

[mark l.]

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=67

gdp per capita...

2000-33.9k
2008-46.0k

I give bush credit on this very broad number, but where bush provided a 35% increase, obama will be lucky to get half the growth, and may very well end up with 10% growth over two terms.

If you grow the economy, many sins can be forgiven. If you kill, or even stall it, you have committed a mortal sin.

[Jack Davis]

And what have we gotten out of Obama's famous (or infamous?) Muslim outreach from Cairo? Nothing. Internationally AND domestically, Obama is a "man-caused disaster" (in the words of Janet Napolitano) who makes Jimmy Carter look absolutely brilliant.

[Anon]

That growth was illusory, I know you know that. It was based on the housing bubble and Wall Street further canibalizing what is left of "value" in corporate America. It was more short term gains at the expense of long term prosperity and very skewed view of valuation.

Also, the signs for the collapse were there for many, many months and the Bush Administration ignored the warmings and did nothing until a full scale catastrophe broke out. Sorry, they get a D for managing the economy.

[mark l.]

"That growth was illusory"

some mitigation for inflation and devalued dollar, but just glancing at state salary changes, from 2000 to 2008, income did increase anywhere from 20-35%, depending on the state.

(the gdp per capita thing might seem broad, as one millionaire, averaged with 19 people out of work, provides a 50k average income...the state anecdote, though, does support the wage increase, and increase in per capita income.)

as for the housing bubble...
that would make two bubbles occurring during one admin. they sailed some pretty rough seas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Comparison_of_three_stock_indices_after_1975.svg

bush walked into office on the downswing and made lemonade out of lemons.

[North Dallas Thirty]

"Seriously, are we THAT threatened by the fact that we've had someone other than a white male, as the "leader of the free world" for all of six months?!.."

And once again the pathetic left demonstrates their belief that everything Obama does is right because he's black, and therefore anyone who dares to criticize him or find him wanting is a racist.

[anon]

Sorry, I don't agree. Our economy is fundamentally out of whack and it has been for some time.

Yes, a lot of people made a lot of money, but most of this was based on the false booms of housing and financial shenagins, it was making "money" as opposed to creating value.

The fundamentals of our economy have been getting more and more shaky over the last 2 decades. GDP alone doesn't tell the story, it doesn't show how quickly the financial sector grew as part of the overall economic pie, nor does it reflect the fact that these financial sector gains were based on ever more esoteric financial instruments.

Like I said, I don't blame Bush for the economic downturn, but I am certainly not going to give him credit for having simply ridden the wave of the bubbles, the housing bubble having been created more or less on purpose. Bush did nothing at all constructive to the economy other than his tax cuts.

[mark l.]

anon-
i do see a larger trend where money is starting to pool in the wealthiest .1% of the world.
(looking for an old survey I had, 1990 had 20% of the world's wealth in millionaires and above, while by 2005 it was something like 33% of the wealth was owned by the world's millionaires.)

the rich are getting richer, but it is the hedge funds that are keeping equities down. money that would be going to support stocks is now being used to leverage everything under the sun, and the stock prices suffer.

it is funny to watch the left panic about the high salaries of actual workers, while the "actual rich" fund the left's class war. we are heading back to oligarchy in the next 50 years.

[Anon]

Ayn Rand. I'm telling you. This is our future. Do you ever read Daily Kos? The hatred of anyone who is 'rich' is palpable.

The problem isn't rich people it is that we've become a country that creates "wealth" from air, through manipulating stock prices, short selling, credit default swaps, etc. as opposed to creating wealth by creating something tangible. While it is true that the jobs and money that support the now parasitic Wall Street sector are real, on the macro level, sooo destructive to the economy.

The left has no solution to put the economy back on a sane footing, their only idea is wealth redistribution. I can't tell you why they don't see that at some point you hit diminishing returns, that when wealth is confiscated people will stop created it and then the negative feedback loop is inescapable. Exactly what happened to the USSR and Communist China...at a certain point, there is nothing left, can't get blood out of a stone.

Obama doesn't have idea #1 on what to do about this, so all he does is spout rhetoric about green jobs and how somehow spending another trillion or two on health care is going to unlock all kinds of money, totally ridiculous.

But, the Republicans don't really have any ideas either and that is problem. Each side simply reflexively opposes what the other guy wants to do. The GOP came to really oppose ANY kind of regulation for any reason at any time unless it was tied to national security. All you ever heard/hear from the GOP is free market, blah, blah, blah. Not helpful or realistic. There have to be some basic market controls or we will careen from boom to bust and back again forever.

Tax cuts are good, certainly better than tax hikes but they can only do so much, especially when the fundamentals of the economy are so bad. The too big to fail companies need to be broken up, yes, I know that is blasphemy to a Republican, nevertheless, if you are too big to fail, then you are too big, period.

I'm not sure what we are heading toward in the next 50 years, other than it ain't good.

[O!]

Yes, Anon, Republicans are against invasive government control of citizens lives. They are in favor of national security.

You keep trying to spin the "Republicans don't have a plan to impose government control over every aspect of people's lives like the Democrats do!" as a bad thing, but regular folks don't see it like that.

Normal people don't want a choice between a Democrat version of government control over every aspect of their life and a Republican version of government control over every aspect of their life.

They don't want a government which dictates what they MUST and MUST NOT do. People prefer to be free to choose for themselves how they live their lives.

[seekeronos]

Where we are heading:

The "class war" is a fabrication by the *truly* wealthy.

You see, there are three basic classes -

1. Working Poor. This is the bulk of the planetary population, ranging from those in utter poverty (not typical in the USA... YET) to the average wage-debt slave pulling in an average $60K USD per year, enough to live "comfortably", but never very far from the precipice of utter ruin.

2. The "Rich", or the Entrepreneurs. As per Daily Kos, the Left/Neo-Marxist agitators, et al. they are the "bad guys" who are being made out to be the cause of all that is wrong with the world.

In reality, this group of people are the small to medium business owners, whose net annual incomes are in the $250K - $2M range. They live mostly in comfort, but not especially lavishly, as they seek to make the most out of their profits, and in the longer term, tend to benefit their local communities through a combination of paying a greater share of the tax burden along with the greater capacity for philanthropic works.

3. The "Mega-Rich", or the globalist billionaires such as George Soros, the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Clintons, and so-forth. They are the top 0.1% Mark spoke of, and they have the wealth and the power to play groups 1 and 2 against each other while rarely ever being detected as the true source of much of the evil that they propagate.

They have considerable overlap with the Illuminati and the various cartels of international bankers, international oil, agribusiness, and (of all things) mass media and entertainment.

Each of these weapons - finance, energy, food, and media are as swords aimed at the heart of every mortal man who is not a part of the elite club that the 3's are a part of.

One day, very soon.... God's judgment will come to pass, and these elites will precipitate the global economic collapse that unravels our entire market system, driving the masses to hysteria as suddenly, we will all need to depend upon the all-powerful global state to feed us and soothe away our anxieties.

Then shall you come to that fateful decision: do you take the mark of the Beast, that mark of credit in the Devil's system that will allow you to function and eat in the NEW WORLD ORDER, and with it be condemned to eternal hellfire...

...or do you resist it in the face of certain death or starvation, if by faith in the Saviour you are saved (to endure certain persecution for a short time on this earth) ?

"-----
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
-----"
(Revelation 13:16-18, KJV)

DO NOT take that mark, whether it be a microchip, or an oath to the New World Order... for it will have eternal repercussions:

"-----
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
-----"
(Revelation 14: 9-12, KJV)

[Higgins1990]

Regardless of the train wreck that Obama has been, he will be judged by the economy (or a terror attack on US soil). If unemployment remains in double digits into next summer, and inflation begins to skyrocket, then the Dems will get bounced at the mid-term elections and Obama will have to tack back to center ala Clinton (will his hubris allow this, though?). In 2012, we will see the fruition of Obama's policies.