Obama, Explained
I have not read this yet, so any critiques will be welcome. I do like James Fallows though. Oh, and it's rather long, but all at the link.
Obama, Explained
As Barack Obama contends for a second term in office, two conflicting narratives of his presidency have emerged. Is he a skillful political player and policy visionarya chess master who always sees several moves ahead of his opponents (and of the punditocracy)? Or is he politically clumsy and out of his deptha pawn overwhelmed by events, at the mercy of a second-rate staff and of the Republicans? Here, a longtime analyst of the presidency takes the measure of our 44th president, with a view to history.
By James Fallows
In the late 1990s, when his fellow University of Chicago professor Barack Obama had just run for the Illinois State Senate and long before a newly inaugurated President Obama named him to his Council of Economic Advisers, the economist Austan Goolsbee was on the most terrifying airplane trip of his life. He was traveling on Southwest Airlines from St. Louis back to Chicagos Midway Airport. The plane got into a thunderstorm, and for a while many passengers thought they were doomed.
One jolt of turbulence was so strong that a flight attendant, not yet strapped in, hit her head on the airplanes ceiling. After another sudden drop, the lights went out on one side of the cabin. The violent ups and downs kept getting worse. Two rows ahead of Goolsbee, a professional-looking woman in her 50s began wailing, Were going to die! Were all going to die! Everyone was looking around and on the border of panic, Goolsbee told me recently. I was kind of wishing someone would start yelling, No, were all not going to die!
At last the plane made it safely to Midway. As passengers filed off, Goolsbee spoke with a strapping young man who had been sitting, ashen but stoic and silent, in a window seat next to the woman whose nerves had broken. He was a high-school football player coming to Chicago on a college recruiting trip. Quite a flight, Goolsbee said to him. This is my first time on an airplane, the young man replied. Are they always like that? I can see why people dont like to fly.
Goolsbees punch line to the story is that during his two years in Washington, I was that kid. He and his colleagues were trying to devise policies to cope with the worst worldwide economic crisis in living memory, in the most contentious political environment in nearly as long a time. He would ask himself, Is it always like this? He could see why people didnt like politics and government.
But when I heard the story, my thoughts turned immediately in another direction. Goolsbee may have felt like that kid, but to most of the world, the more obvious comparison would be to the man who hired Goolsbee, Barack Obama. Four years after being sworn in as a freshman senator, occupying a position of executive authority for the first time in his life, Obama was, at age 47, instantly responsible for guiding the worlds superpower and its allies through an emergency that had left far more experienced leaders wailing the political and financial equivalent of Were all going to die!
lots more...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/obama-explained/8874/?single_page=true
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)that Obama pushed through in November? That pretty well tells us what we need to know.
Hundreds of thousands of US jobs evaporated.
For what?
applegrove
(118,677 posts)their trade with China and Oil from the middle east. All other trade relationships the US does fine on.
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)What do you think of the "free" trade deals?
babylonsister
(171,066 posts)of things this President has done. But I also know he's done a lot of good, and I can appreciate that also, unlike some people who seem to be one issue people, even when their issues change. All some people know how to do is find an issue and start the trashing; I find that puzzling. I DO remember dimson; I am very well pleased with Obama on the whole. He's at least attempting to improve the lot of Americans. I can't think of one person on the rethug side who compares to him, nor even a Democrat who could do better.
So I'll keep on paying attention and hope for the very best for our President. I think we are fortunate to have this man on our side.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)I tried reading it, and it's just all too inside-the-box and speculative. Obama, whatever else he is, is new, not the same old deal. The experts are constantly being surprised at how things do not occur the way they think they must. Is one to question the facts or the "experts" who fail to see them coming?