tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34867261.post245193555324450610..comments2023-10-25T04:44:35.462-04:00Comments on Rather Than Working: Dear President Obama,Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04411527807049220749noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34867261.post-18390948672824692992010-09-22T12:49:15.884-04:002010-09-22T12:49:15.884-04:00The first comment above is actually by Susie, my b...The first comment above is actually by Susie, my blind friend, who asked me to post it for her. I forgot about attribution. Sorry Susie.Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04411527807049220749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34867261.post-33113251382559983342010-09-22T12:41:41.226-04:002010-09-22T12:41:41.226-04:00BHO had no mandate. He had the good fortune to be...BHO had no mandate. He had the good fortune to be not-a-Republican in an election where, because of the economy, any old not-a-Republican would do.<br /><br />You are so right that he'd be a fine (if frustrating) mediator. (When I have a case mediated, my client really needs to know what the <i>mediator thinks</i> -- and the old judge's blunt response of "in my experience, if you put that in front of a jury, you'll bankrupt your company," is far more helpful in settling a case than the mediator's careful neutrality in everything.)<br /><br />Anyway, for all his talk, BHO never really tried bipartisanship. In practice, Mr. Obama's idea of "bipartisanship" has been 'agree with us or you're an obstructionist.' Which makes it all the worse that he's never put his <i>own</i> proposals on anything, that I can see. He put Pelosi and her people in charge on Obamacare when it should have been clear to him that her positions were too extreme for her own party. The mishmash we are saddled with now came from compromises necessary to get <i>Democratic</i> votes required for passage, not compromises unilaterally made to get Republican votes which would never be delivered. On Dodd-Frank, it was the debate between the White House economic team and the Democrats in Congress that watered all the potentially helpful provisions down -- again, not unilateral cuts in hopes of attracting phantom Republican votes. And never did BHO stand up and say, 'I must have this, this and this or there is no bill.'<br /><br />On the civil liberties questions, well, statism is a disease from which all recent presidents (in both parties) have suffered. Somehow anyone who gets in sniffing distance of the White House forgets about their prior commitments to civil liberties. An illustrative excerpt from my <a href="http://secondeffort.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-sort-of-privacy-should-we-demand.html" rel="nofollow">2/23/09 post</a> (which was suggested by a comment of yours, actually) follows:<br /><br />This is why people concerned about civil liberties were concerned when the Bush administration sought to give telephone companies retroactive immunity from suits "for participating in the government's program to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants following the Sept. 11 attacks." Though originally opposed to the retroactive immunity provision in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then-Senator Obama, perhaps already thinking about how he might want to govern, changed his position and voted for the bill, with the immunities included, when the bill reached the Senate floor. (Source: Chicago Tribune article by Katie Fretland, July 10, 2008.)The Curmudgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723009641287783218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34867261.post-27363445288708251482010-09-21T14:04:13.565-04:002010-09-21T14:04:13.565-04:00The Barry Switzer analagy is pretty good. I too wi...The Barry Switzer analagy is pretty good. I too wish Obama would grow a pair and say "Y'know what? I don't have one of those faux mandates that the mouth-breather just before me had. I have a real mandate, and it's time to use it. Bring it on, nutcases. Hold up Sarah Palin as the ideal public servant, Pinochet's Chile as the ideal country, and the droppings of F. A. Hayek as the ideal economic approach. Let's see how we stack up, eh?"<br /><br />But no, that's not gonna happen.<br /><br />WFWeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00089140514043408208noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34867261.post-58419159185653050122010-09-21T08:30:55.460-04:002010-09-21T08:30:55.460-04:00I've come to think of Barack Obama as being cu...I've come to think of Barack Obama as being cut from the same cloth as Barry Switzer.<br /><br />Barry Switzer came into Dallas thinking, "These are all grown men, professional men, and they'll act responsibly without any yelling or hand-holding from me."<br /><br />And I'm sure you remember how that turned out.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34867261.post-72576591699415802052010-09-21T07:47:35.485-04:002010-09-21T07:47:35.485-04:00I just want you to know that I follow your blog, r...I just want you to know that I follow your blog, read your rantings, and mostly agree with your thoughts. I just can't get as angry. I just think that the world is going to hell, always has been so, but we hear more about it now. Is it worse now than WWI or WWII, Hitler and his kind? Or the Spanish Inquisition? McCarthy? Prohibition and all the gangsters it spawned? I could go on and on. So could you. I like living with my head under a blanket but I am glad you are out there ranting.Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04411527807049220749noreply@blogger.com