Yes We Can, But... Obama on Jon Stewart Show

Discussion in 'Politics' started by madanthonywayne, Oct 28, 2010.

  1. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    In a last ditch attempt to bolster his parties flagging fortunes in next week's election; President Obama appeared on the Daily Show last night. I think the thread title (a direct quote) nicely summarizes the President's perfornance and the difference between his campaign and his performance as President. It's no longer Yes We Can!, it's now:

    Yes We Can, But.....


    The president did continue after the but, but the audience interupted his brief pause with some well deserved laughter at the ironic change in what had been his campaign slogan.

    Check it out here:
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    But... we still need a clear 60 votes in the Senate to get things done.
     
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  5. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    But​

     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Apparently Obama is now a failure because he has been unable to fix the Tea Party disasters and overcome the current Tea Party forces in Congress, these past few months? His campaign rhetoric proven over-optimistic, as the agents of the current disaster prove more difficult to overcome than the hopeful person estimated.

    His message of hope having run into David Koch and Mitch McConnell and Rush Limbaugh, the Madanthony heroes of the US political scene, we can all enjoy a little laugh at his expense, apparently.

    Kind of like the joke about Irishmen Paddy who bets that some other guy isn't strong enough to carry him up a ladder - and gloats, from his broken bone rest on the ground, that he won.

    Or watch the other 99% of the interview, for a somewhat different take on things - one a little less humorous, despite its several good chuckles (including a couple of good digs at Jon, something not every guest is capable of delivering), and one that might serve as a wakeup to those become accustomed to the current US media: how did we get to the point at which the most informative and hardest edged political analysis on the airwaves, the week before a national election, is coming from brief comedy show interviews?
     
  8. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    ... Or people could not like the ballooning budget, his healthcare bill that has raised premiums and his inability to get the economy moving...

    As I've written fairly consistently, the democrats continual moving of the goals posts is getting pretty ridiculous. Apparently, at the end of this line of thinking, the voter is expected to hand them complete control of the government (heck, why not all 100 Senators?) and then, quite suddenly, one imagines, the "change" will come and the nation will be restored. Or something. You tell me...

    Meanwhile, I've ranted and complained to just about everyone here about my loathing for Stewart, but he truly seems to have nailed his colors to the mast with this interview (and yes, I saw all of it). Pretending he is in the "center" and not overtly attached to the Dems is probably no longer an option for him or his partner.
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Jon Stewart's studio audience?

    Being the best informed TV news audience in existence, they would hardly be likely to buy into that line of bullshit.
    The desperation of such fictional deflections of real issues has been ridiculous for years now.
    Anyone anywhere near any mythical "center" is going to look like they are "attached to the Dems". The Dems have a current monopoly on all considerations of actual government, "center" and "right" and "left" together - the Reps haven't been governing, as opposed to campaigning and propagandizing and power seizing, for years now.
    At the end of this line of thinking, the voter is well advised to remove from office every member of the current Republican Party in office or appointed role, and replace them with anything else - a pet rock? A Democrat? Whatever is at hand. They have been and still are a rolling disaster, and they have no excuse.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2010
  10. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    You are in government. You should know how the budget is compiled and how money is spent, unless you are a low level guy in Washington.

    Obama's 2009 budget was the creation of george II and his merry band of Republicans. Regardless of what you think about the TARP bailouts and the auto industry bailouts, those were started under and became necessary under george II and his merry band of Republicans.

    Let's look at the other damage in the federal budget when it was handed to Obama;

    - huge tax cuts (unfunded for close to 8 years)
    - a national debt near 13 trillion dollars and of course the interest payments for all the borrowed money to plague federal budgets for years to come
    - two unfunded and ongoing wars
    - a Great Recession which could easily turn into Great Depression II
    - an economy and tax base loosing almost a million jobs a month
    - more than 4 million people unemployed and all of the social benefits associated with unemployment and food stamps
    - Medicare Part D giveaway to the health insurance and drug industries

    Any person in the White House (especially a new adminstration) could not fix all of those budget problems in a month or a year while in the nations economy was on the brink of Great Depression II.

    Two, health insurance premiums go up each and every year regardless of what happens or doesn't happen. The nations healthcare costs are a huge tax on the federal budget and private industry.

    The American government is the single largest consumer of healthcare in the nation. If we ever want to hope to get a handle on healthcare costs we are going to need healthcare reform in this nation. While the Democrat version of healthcare reform is less than optimal, it is a hell of a lot better than any thing the Repbulcians did during their time in power.

    The bottom line a quarter to a third of the federal budget (depending on how you cut it) is spent on healthcare. Twenty-one percent of the federal budget alone is Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP...then add in healthcare for federal employees like yourself and you get a very big number.

    The non partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Obama's healthcare reform will save the nation a 100 billion in the first 10 years..and that is say something since the program doesn't really get going for another 3plus years. In the second 10 years the Congressional Budget office says is will shave a trillion dollars off the federal budget. That is a good thing countezero.

    Do you have something that can demonstrate how Democrats have been continually moving the "goal posts"?

    Maybe change would happen if Democrats had all 100 seats in the Senate and House. One thing is certian, change that benefits the nation and its citizens will not happen with Republicans at the helm. They had their chance and they screwed things up big time.

    I would feel a little more comfortable with Republicans if they could draft out a reasonable and realistic plan for getting from here to a more stable and prosperous future. The problem is I have not heard that plan yet. All I hear from Republicans these days are irresponsible mob incitements and outright lies.
    I thought Stewart was pretty good last night. He cut the president zero slack. He asked some very hardball questions. I think you are disappointed in the results and not the treatment rendered by Stewart.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2010
  11. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    In your usual snarky fashion, you alleged that people unhappy with Obama seemed to be creating fantasies. Or were just stupid and misled. I countered with three obvious points of reasonable dissent.

    "Best informed" TV audience is a pretty dubious distinction, but let's not even deal with that...

    My insurance premium just went up. So did my father's. So did my mother's. So did my girlfriend's. I mean, should I go on? Meanwhile, the increase in defecit spending and the stagnant economy are facts that are easy to read about at any number of newsources. Nobody is making this up.

    It's not a desperation of my making. It's theirs. First, we needed to put them in charge of Congress. We did that. Then it was they needed a majority in the Senate. They got that. Then the presidency. They got that, too. Then, it was a super-majority. See a pattern? It's ignore what we've done with our current power, give us more because then we can do what we promised to do previously.

    At no point does the obvious fact that Obama enjoys majorities most presidents did not have (Clinton certainly) enter into the discussion, nor the obvious duty of a ruling party to deal with its opposition on some level. As I've written elsewhere, the Dems even had trouble keeping their own members on board with some of their policies (health care being one of them) and Dems are now running against those policies.

    I'm not standing up for the Republicans here and arguing they have any particular bright ideas (because they don't). All I am refuting is this tired notion that the Dems need MORE power to do, well, anything really. They've controlled spending since 2007. It's their puppy now, however ugly it is.

    Yes, all Republicans are evil. You've made that incredibly clear for the past several years. Only, your analysis is pretty useless on this issue, given its obvious bias and ideological bent.

    Glad we know where you stand.
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I'm certain that if any plan were made so that it could at least be "balanced" enough for both parties to agree then any legislation should be able to pass and become law. The problem seems to be that no one wants to compromise enough so that both can agree.

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  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Because Republicans abuse the filibuster rule (not in the constitution), Democrats need a clear 60 votes to pass the kind of change the president would like. It really is that simple. There are no "moving goalposts". Democrats can be bi-partisan, but evidently Republicans cannot, they are bullies in every sense of the word. They will obstruct everthing they can and then mock the president for not getting anything done.
     
  14. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    5,590
    I've heard all of this before. I don't buy it. They are proposing bills their own party cannot get behind. I've acknowledged the Republicans can be obstructionist, but the Dems argument of give us more just doesn't work, in part, because what they have managed to do is deeply unpopular.
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    It's not as unpopular as right wing media have tried to portray (mostly by lying about it), and yes there are some conservative Democrats, which is why we need more Democrats period.
     
  16. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    When has your health insurance not gone up? Health insurance premiums go up each and every year. And Obama's healthcare reform is not fully implemented. So how do you know that the increases you are seeing in your healthcare insurance premiums are related to Obamacare? You don't it is a supposition on your part. It is also the Republican Party line.

    You cannot be that simple minded. One the Democrats as a party never made the claims you attribute to them.

    And just what would you have Democrats do that they have not done?
    Obama also enjoys all of the problems previously mentioned including an economy on the brink of Great Depression II with the nations banks and industries in a free fall.
    The Democrats do need more power because they only have a super majority in the Senate by colluding with Independents. Forty-eight Democrats is not a super majority in a body of 100 senators. And Democrats are not like Republicans...they all think for themselves. So it is more difficult for them to come to conclusions and agreements than it is for Republicans. Democrats don't suffer from "group think" to the degree Republicans do.

    All Republicans are not evil, but their leadership certianly are corrupt and do not interested in serving the average Joe or Jane in this country.
     
  17. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    At least they passed a budget. Here we are almost in November and still no budget for 2011. Passing a budget is the most basic of congressional functions, but Obama and his merry band of Democrats couldn't even accomplish that.
    GWB's problem was not the tax cuts, but the spending. You might remember a little thing that happened in September of 2001 that put quite a hit on the economy? Bush's tax cuts were much more effection than Obama's orgy or government spending at getting the economy going again after a disaster.l

    And speaking of those tax cuts, that's one more area in which Obama and his merry band of Democrats have failed. By not acting to either definitively extend the Bush tax cuts or let them die, we get to suffer both from the expectation of higher taxes and of increasing debt.

    Obama and his merry band of Democrats have been a spectacular failure at the basic tasks of governing. Yes we can, but....indeed.
    Obama is the king of debt, Bush is a piker compared to him.
    Yeah, two wars. That does suck.
    Yes, thanks to Obama and his merry band of Democrats following the same policies as Hoover/FDR.--
    Whatever the unemployment rate was when Obama took office (8%?), it's only gone up since then despite his party having complete control of the government for most of his term.
    I strongly opposed that, but I can't imagine why a commited Democrat such as yourself would be against it.
    Obama wasted most of his presidency on his FUBAR of a health care bill that actually managed to make things worse.



    PS See how annoying saying "merry band of" all the time is?
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    No. Promulgators of the "both sides are to blame" line of shit about what is happening here are creating fantasies.

    No one in my corner of the world is happy with Obama, or ever was - but that doesn't mean we buy into some kind of nonsense about Dems being united and in control of the government, led by Obama. Quite the opposite.
    It's a desperation of your exhibiting.

    Everybody's health insurance went up again this year - dramatically, as predicted by us lefties - so Obama's health care plan is to blame? Please. That isn't serious.
    Next step, acknowledge they have been nothing else since the black guy took office.

    And before that, that they were a disaster. Their time in unobstructed power was a time of serious damage to the United States, and it was almost completely their doing.

    And that what we are talking about here is not, as your faction of propagandists frame things, a matter of Dems on one side, Reps on the other. The Reps and some Dems are in one faction, some Dems are in another, and some Dems in yet other factions. The children's story of Dems vs Reps is a deliberate deflection into wingnut framing.
    Obama has a much bigger hole to dig out of than any President since FDR. And he has no reliable majority of support in Congress. The Dems are split.

    Bush, meanwhile, did have those fine majorities - without the scorched earth opposition. Obama has no Reps cooperating even minimally with even ordinary attempts to govern (appoint judges, etc) - W had many Dems rolling with him on even the craziest stuff.
    Sure - you are attempting to frame the situation as Dems on one side, Reps on the other, symmetrically left and right, count noses. Ignore reality, count Ds and Rs on the manifest. That's a corporate Rep line, campaign propaganda designed to obscure Republican responsibility for the such things as W's 2007, 2008, and 2009 budgets, the consequences of W's 8 years of typically corporate health care policy, and so forth.
    You and everyone who argues from the wingnut frame are doing exactly that. You are pushing the Republican campaign swing, in Fox News language and frame, and nothing else.
    His spending. He is responsible for cutting taxes, in the face of his own spending.
    What you are certain of, there, is a line of wingnut spin - it's the way Fox News describes the situation of one Party attempting to disable the sitting government in hopes of regaining power.

    The Reps will vote for their own united preferred legislation, uncompromised by any features that would inconvenience their corporate paymasters, and nothing else. "Balance" is not involved.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2010
  19. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    Difficult to say, other than that it apparently involves some kind of bipartisan mass delusion that PBS does not exist.

    Now how about aknowledging that obstruction is the entirety of the GOP platform in the current elections?
     
  20. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    In 2007 (years after the implementation of the Bush tax cuts) the deficit was only 1% of GDP, whereas by 2010 it was over 10%. This with no change whatsoever in tax rates.

    How can tax rates be to blame?


     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    I don't know - I was counting PBS. A respectable second place, maybe - but that's not respectable, when you come right down to it.

    Maybe I should watch a whole interview on PBS, some time - I walk off feeling simultaneously bored and betrayed, about half through, in critical political stuff.

    Like this, days late and dollars short, from far enough back to get a look at it: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/view/

    So you are buying the official W numbers for the GDP and the deficit during the years of the big lie, overlooking what happened to the GDP when the devil came for his due, and concluding what - that W was not piling up debt in 2006? 2007?

    Is there anything just too damn silly for a Republican voter to believe?
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2010
  22. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    There were massive - if temporary - changes in tax rates through that period. Something like 40% of the stimulus consisted of tax cuts.

    And you're being predictably disingenuous in avoiding aknowledging that the obvious drivers of the present deficit were disasterous policies put in place by the GOP over the previous decade. And by assigning the 2008 and 2009 deficits to Obama, when they reflect spending decisions made under Bush.

    In short, you're full of shit and do not merit being taken seriously. It is disrespectful to your interlocutors to advance such blatantly dishonest lines of argumentation, repeatedly and in the face of numerous good-faith corrections. Since you seem to think that we're all idiots and pushovers, I'll go ahead and return the favor: you have shit for brains and merit about as much respect as a spoiled, petulant child. Shut up when the adults are talking.
     
  23. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    I strongly disagree. In my book, PBS is the only televised journalism in the US. The other stuff is in some other category - "news entertainment" or something like that. It's apples and oranges. The only non-PBS programming that doesn't treat its audience with outright contempt would be the Comedy Central stuff...

    I'm a Frontline fan, but that's the wrong place to look. As a documentary series it's inherently backwards-looking - doesn't tend to have much to say about politics until it's too late. What you want to be watching is Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, News Hour, Washington Week, etc.
     

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