Because Obama is smart enough to learn from his mistakes.
I notice you used the praying emoticon, which speaks volumes.
Isn't that the modus operandi for recent presidents? They deal with a (dis)loyal opposition, and jump from crisis to crisis.
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The only president who will gain control of the narrative is the one who either gains control of the media or starts a war. Bush Jr. got that one right.
Ah, but if I read you correctly you're contradicting yourself here. The m.o. for recent Presidents is jumping from crisis to crisis, but then you point out that Bush, the guy in the oval office before Obama, gained control of the narrative. If I have understood you, this actually illustrates my point: it is not impossible for a President to take advantage of the media to lead the country in a manner consistent with his party's platforms. Obama, who has always been attacked by the right as a media creation and a charismatic figure (in the negative sense), seemed to be good at that. Now we have to remind ourselves that he's really a centrist-pragmatist?
Perhaps the reason Obama and the Democrats can't get their message out effectively is very simple: they don't have one strong enough to stick. I'm not suggesting the left should cynically exploit the media for its own gain with an aggressive campaign of lies and misinformation, as the right has done for years. But certainly they can at least cobble together a message which keeps everyone focused on the important issues and orients the debate around facts. Think about this: a recent Pew Research Center poll showed that only 34% of Americans know that the much-maligned TARP was enacted under Bush, not Obama. Only one in three!
It seems like leaving Afghanistan as a failed state controlled by the Taliban would be a disaster of epic proportions, though; our withdrawal will be as messy and heartbreaking as what's happening in Iraq right now (59 Iraqi recruits dead, 100 injured just today). There's no easy way out.
I understand this argument, and it's sound. Most people believe this. However, the argument breaks down when you consider that we shouldn't have gone in there as occupiers and nation-builders in the first place. The inevitable is inevitable. Why sacrifice more troops and gajillions of dollars in a losing effort? Why continue to fight a secret war against Pakistan? Why continue to bankrupt the nation in an unpopular conflict?
Perhaps I'm more naive than you, but I don't think that this administration is under the neocon influence
The position of the neocons was a poisonous flowering of one extremist element within an otherwise stable Washington consensus that has existed for decades. There is disagreement as to how to establish and hold American hegemony, but there is no disagreement that America should be an imperial power. Obama (and Gore, for that matter) would have started the anti-terrorism campaign after 9/11 differently than the neocons under Bush, but the broader outlines would've been similar.
One simple way to look at the matter is to think about the defense budget. Sure, it fluctuates, and some administrations are more hawkish than others, but going back for, what, thirty-five years or so, the ballooning of American military might has been consistent under Republicans and Democrats alike. Just because we're all tired of hearing about the military-industrial complex doesn't mean it has gone away. The U.S. is intent on projecting power over the rest of the world, largely in the interest of controlling economic markets and natural resources (oil). This is the strategy common to Bush and Obama.
In addition, there's one more strategy they share which is frightening: the continued roll-out and tightening of the police state under the control of the Executive Branch. But, hey, I'll pause there. I don't want to sound any more like a conspiracy theorist than I already do.
Let's look at recent mine safety legislation proposed in response to the Big Branch coal mine disaster: the Democrats recently passed stricter Federal safety legislation in the House without a single Republican vote. There is no chance of it passing in the Senate because not a single Republican will get on board. The Democrats back a strengthening of Federal safety laws and oversight - the Republicans lean toward voluntary corporate "oversight" (Rand Paul says that we don't need mine safety regulations at all, since workers will simply refuse to work at an unsafe mine. He is being backed by the coal industry as a result of the Citizen's United decision, as are several other industry-friendly Republicans in coal mining states). Surely you can see the dangerous level of idiocy in allowing the free market to regulate industry. There's no question which approach to Federal power will save the most lives. Now, the coal dust issue is irking: it is not being monitored in the legislation, and enforcement is being left a bit murky. "Rock dusting" standards are being tightened up, however, and that does address the issue.
So, one can criticize the Democrats and say "see, they don't care about black lung," throw them out of office and allow rampant deregulation of mining safety standards, or you can say "yes the Democrats appear to have watered down the legislation, but we must not let the imperfect be the enemy of the good." I know you don't like that kind of thinking (and those kinds of cliches), but that is how it works most of the time.
Ask miners if they prefer stricter safety codes or not. Ask workers if they want the corporations to voluntarily protect them, or if they want the Federal government to enact and enforce laws to protect them. This is a real, quantitative difference in governance between the two parties.
This is very true. I don't doubt the Democrats are different in many ways than the Republicans. As I mentioned above, I know that Obama and Gore would have steered the country in a different direction after 9/11.
Part of the problem is that the severity of our problems demand leadership the Democrats can't or won't offer. I salute the Democrats for passing the stricter safety codes and I abhor the Republicans who refused to go along with them for political reasons.
That said, I am fairly certain that if this matter had come to the attention of the major news media, and become a talking point for demagogues like Palin, the Democrats would have been backed up and probably defeated-- or, as with health care, scored a watered-down victory that would nevertheless appear to be the exact opposite in the minds of millions of Americans. So in a way you chose a great example and yet, in my opinion, a poor one, too, because part of my beef with the Democrats is that they are, for the most part, cowards and boobs who can't win the big fights. There's a massive void of leadership, starting with Obama, and they're going to pay for it in November, after which even genuinely admirable legislative victories like the one you cite will be next to impossible.
Given your suspicion and (in some cases) extreme dislike of the other side, I'm surprised you aren't angrier with the Democrats. They managed to toss the bad guys out of the ring for a few years but their incompetence is going to let them storm right back in, and this time the villains are going to be wielding steel folding chairs.
Wait, did I just compare American politics to professional wrestling?
