Obama naysayers! Tell me how 5 months is enough time to change the World [View All]

[zulchzulu]

I have another thread where I point out that people like Bill Maher (a career complainer, albeit amusing sometimes) and Keith Olbermann (where I am a recently disappointed fan) were in Full Stage Conjecture trying to explain their disappointment in Obama's first term as President. That's convenient armchair quarterbacking until one realizes that it has only been about five months since Obama has been President. He's not a King or a Magician who can decree laws in a day or zap problems with the wink of an eye or the turning of a wand. He's a President.

So what are the steps to have a President pass a law? Isn't it like grabbing that remote and changing the channel? No. Here's how it works. Of course, it takes a majority of votes to pass, which is something to take into account before legislation is begun.

For legislation to pass, here are the basic steps needed:

• Legislation is authored and brought through committees pertaining to the new bill
  
• The House votes on the legislation after amendments are offered, debated, changed, omitted, amended and otherwise changed from the original bill
  
• The Senate votes on the legislation after amendments are offered, debated, changed, omitted, amended and otherwise changed from the original bill
  
• The bill then goes to conference committee where further amendments are offered, changed and differences in the bill between the House and Senate bill
  
• The bill is then voted on by the House and Senate with the possibility of further amendments that would then go through conference committee and then back to the House and Senate again
  
• The final bill, with all the changes made and amendments added are then sent to the president to sign into law.

We're not talking days. We're talking weeks. Months. Years.

Now, let's look at what Obama inherited:

• An economy as bad or worse than the Great Depression
  
• A banking industry teetering on the possibility of complete collapse
  
• An auto industry about to go bankrupt and cause millions of jobs to be lost
  
• A housing industry about to completely turn into a disaster
  
• Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and trouble in Pakistan
  
• Israel in war mode against the Palestinians
  
• North Korea and Iran in contentious nuclear bomb antics
  
• A healthcare industry in bad need of reform
  
• Equal rights for gays in the military and relationships
  
• Global warming
  
• A completely uncooperative Republican party
  
• Hundreds of other issues, problems and events too numerous to mention

OK, so five months have gone by and here is an assessment by someone who thinks that Obama has been as productive as FDR:

• Passing the "largest" economic stimulus bill in American history.
  
• Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing "enhanced interrogation techniques."
  
• Setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
  
• Ordering 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and enlisting, with modest new assistance, European allies in a new multi-layered strategy there and in Pakistan.
  
• "Returning science to its rightful place" by lifting the Bush restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
  
• Signing laws to expand children's health insurance (financed by a 61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax the adviser did not tout).
  
• Signing a law meant to improve the ability of women who allege pay discrimination to sue their employer.
  
• Diminishing the role of lobbyists in the White House
  
• "Forge a meaningful statement from the United Nations" criticizing North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile.
  
• Lifting travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans who seek to travel more frequently to the island and send more US currency to their immediate family.
  
• Engaging world leaders in Europe, Turkey, Latin American and the Caribbean with "strength and humility."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/21/adviser-says-obamas-days-productive-fdr/

I would like to know succinctly from those who think Obama hasn't done enough yet to illustrate a timeline where Obama COULD have done more AND had the votes to get that particular legislation passed.

Let's see real answers and not just the usual playground insults.