Reddy Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Honest question: How much does it irk a lot of you that Obama's going to be remembered as one of the great presidents? Disclaimer: Still not a fan of many of his positions, especially wiretapping/drones/snowden/etc, but he's gotten all gangsta this year and it's going to look good on him a couple decades down the road when he was the first to start offering free college tuition, the first to try for universal health care, expanding workers' rights, equal pay, etc, etc. Saving and growing the economy after the crash. Getting OBL. Income-based repayment on student loans (big one for me personally). ALL in spite of a congress that stonewalled him every inch of the way. Meanwhile the GOP keeps imploding with their complete inability to respond to the SOTU properly. Dalek-Joni this year, Cruz had to restart his a minute into it, Rubio's drink-gate. Good times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caulfield12 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 21, 2015 -> 11:43 PM) Honest question: How much does it irk a lot of you that Obama's going to be remembered as one of the great presidents? Disclaimer: Still not a fan of many of his positions, especially wiretapping/drones/snowden/etc, but he's gotten all gangsta this year and it's going to look good on him a couple decades down the road when he was the first to start offering free college tuition, the first to try for universal health care, expanding workers' rights, equal pay, etc, etc. Saving and growing the economy after the crash. Getting OBL. Income-based repayment on student loans (big one for me personally). ALL in spite of a congress that stonewalled him every inch of the way. Meanwhile the GOP keeps imploding with their complete inability to respond to the SOTU properly. Dalek-Joni this year, Cruz had to restart his a minute into it, Rubio's drink-gate. Good times. Probably, he will be seen a lot like Truman, in the sense that his "popularity" will rise the further you go into the future, and historians from both sides battle it out to determine his legacy. If the US economy flies along for the next two years like it did at the end of Bill Clinton's second term, and if there's tangible evidence to most Americans that Obamacare's actually working, then he has a shot at rescuing his legacy. Another factor will be if a Democrat is elected President in 2016 with a Congress that will work with him/her and carry on the "middle class realignment" battle. Hilary's well positioned to win that fight, it's basically her wheelhouse. As an native Iowan, I wonder how long it will last that people will ask me if I ever wore bread bags over my shoes? Ernst's ability to seize the moment worked about as well as Bobby Jindal, haha. Edited January 22, 2015 by caulfield12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 21, 2015 -> 07:41 PM) I quit watching the State of the Union 10+ years ago when I realized it was basically an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway. Everything is made up, and the points don't matter. A friend of mine posted the exact same thing in Facebook . . . I gave it a "like" there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Texsox Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 21, 2015 -> 06:50 PM) And he promised 'free stuff' to 90% of the country, so the results are not surprising. Kind of like the "you won't have to pay taxes" promises that the GOP makes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 21, 2015 -> 11:43 PM) Honest question: How much does it irk a lot of you that Obama's going to be remembered as one of the great presidents? Disclaimer: Still not a fan of many of his positions, especially wiretapping/drones/snowden/etc, but he's gotten all gangsta this year and it's going to look good on him a couple decades down the road when he was the first to start offering free college tuition, the first to try for universal health care, expanding workers' rights, equal pay, etc, etc. Saving and growing the economy after the crash. Getting OBL. Income-based repayment on student loans (big one for me personally). ALL in spite of a congress that stonewalled him every inch of the way. Meanwhile the GOP keeps imploding with their complete inability to respond to the SOTU properly. Dalek-Joni this year, Cruz had to restart his a minute into it, Rubio's drink-gate. Good times. Geez, can I have what you're having? Must be some good stuff to be as delusional as your are about him. He's far from the worst, but he's also far from "one of the greats." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabiness42 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 I quit watching the State of the Union 10+ years ago when I realized it was basically an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway. Everything is made up, and the points don't matter. Awesome. I am so stealing this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reddy Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 09:43 AM) Geez, can I have what you're having? Must be some good stuff to be as delusional as your are about him. He's far from the worst, but he's also far from "one of the greats." can you be more specific? thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chisoxfn Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Reddy...I think you are delusional at this point. Too hard to see what the legacy would be down the road but I don't think there are a lot of people who today would call him one of the "great" presidents. If you go off of historical approval ratings, there is nothing to indicate he is great. Hard to predict what the view of him will be 20+ years from now but to be able to make a claim that he is in fact going to be regarded that way is pretty crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Reddy @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 11:39 AM) can you be more specific? thanks. What do you mean more specific? What drugs are you on? If you think Obama will be considered on of the greatest Presidents in our history, you must be on something. He's failed miserably at the vast majority of campaign promises he's given in the two campaigns (ending 99% of the Bush war on terror policies, closing Gitmo, going after the wealthy/Wall Street, blah blah). His one crowning achievement - Obamacare - was an embarrassment for 6 months and still hasn't delivered the 30 million uninsured's it was supposed to. A whopping 5% drop in the number of uninsured's. I'm sure the cost the government is spending/has spent will be TOTALLY worth that. Yes, the economy is improving, though i'm always dubious of any claim that a single person pushing policy can hurt or help the economy. What specifically are you pointing to that he pushed for and got that led to the recovery? I don't think he did anything, I think the US just happened to be the most secure out of any country in the world and we're looking better because of it (falling oil prices also helped quite a bit). I don't think he gets credit for OBL. I think any president would have ok'd that mission. You're giving him credit for promises like free community college (I highly doubt he was the first to say this is a good idea) or any of his other "middle class economics" promises that will most likely not happen. I mean, the fact that you point to approval of SOTU speeches as evidence that people are behind him and not the GOP is just laughable. He's promising people the moon. Of course they'll be happy. Let's see how happy they'll be when none of it happens. Also, IBR plans have been around for a long time, at least since i've been paying back my loans (2004). I think his promise at one point to forgive all loans after 25 years never passed. So i'm not sure what you're referring to here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockRaines Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Who would people consider to be "great" presidents? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 12:02 PM) Reddy...I think you are delusional at this point. Too hard to see what the legacy would be down the road but I don't think there are a lot of people who today would call him one of the "great" presidents. If you go off of historical approval ratings, there is nothing to indicate he is great. Hard to predict what the view of him will be 20+ years from now but to be able to make a claim that he is in fact going to be regarded that way is pretty crazy. Well, duh, they're all racist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 12:14 PM) Who would people consider to be "great" presidents? I'd go Lincoln, Teddy, Washington, Jefferson, FDR, and Reagan as my top 6, in order. Everyone else was meh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleHurt05 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 12:14 PM) Who would people consider to be "great" presidents? Reagan /thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 (edited) QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 12:14 PM) What do you mean more specific? What drugs are you on? If you think Obama will be considered on of the greatest Presidents in our history, you must be on something. He's failed miserably at the vast majority of campaign promises he's given in the two campaigns (ending 99% of the Bush war on terror policies, closing Gitmo, going after the wealthy/Wall Street, blah blah). His one crowning achievement - Obamacare - was an embarrassment for 6 months and still hasn't delivered the 30 million uninsured's it was supposed to. A whopping 5% drop in the number of uninsured's. I'm sure the cost the government is spending/has spent will be TOTALLY worth that. there's not much he can do about gitmo with Congress deliberately blocking him. He did end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He's been s*** on prosecuting Wall Street. The Obamacare website was crap for a month or two, not six months. When you change from "30 million" to "5%," you hide that a 5% drop equates to 15 million fewer uninsured people in the first year of the program, and sign-ups are only expected to increase. That number would also be substantially higher if the Medicaid expansion hadn't been gutted. Yes, the economy is improving, though i'm always dubious of any claim that a single person pushing policy can hurt or help the economy. What specifically are you pointing to that he pushed for and got that led to the recovery? I don't think he did anything, I think the US just happened to be the most secure out of any country in the world and we're looking better because of it (falling oil prices also helped quite a bit). The economy craters a heck of a lot more without the ARRA. They screwed up a lot of things (HAMP was particularly horrible when it could have been very helpful), but his administration avoided much of the austerity that swept and crippled a lot of Europe. In that case, it's more of not actively harming the recovery than helping it. edit: I'm not saying that to credit whatever Reddy's saying or say he'll be regarded as one of the greatest down the road, just that you're either seriously downplaying or misrepresenting some of what his administration has accomplished. edit2: also, the EPA's actions on climate change are pretty important Edited January 22, 2015 by StrangeSox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 01:33 PM) edit2: also, the EPA's actions on climate change are pretty important And still quite inadequate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 12:42 PM) And still quite inadequate. I'm not sure how much more the executive branch can do without Congressional assistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockRaines Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 12:16 PM) I'd go Lincoln, Teddy, Washington, Jefferson, FDR, and Reagan as my top 6, in order. Everyone else was meh. Im not sure there would be a consensus on those either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Seeing FDR and Reagan next to each other is a little jarring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chisoxfn Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 10:16 AM) I'd go Lincoln, Teddy, Washington, Jefferson, FDR, and Reagan as my top 6, in order. Everyone else was meh. Clinton makes my list as well. Mainly because he was the last president who was kind of able to reach across the aisle and get some bipartisanship to work. Ever since him its gone seriously downhill. I don't like everything he did and I don't think he did anything that I'd call "overly historic" but he did have pretty impressive approval ratings, etc, oversaw an extremely promising era, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chisoxfn Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 10:48 AM) I'm not sure how much more the executive branch can do without Congressional assistance. I'm sick of the pissing contest...well we could do it if the other side would...we would do it if the other side would. At some point, cut the s*** and lets at least enact the stuff the general public wants that makes sense. Obama has failed miserably at working with the other party and yes the Repubs have failed too in this regard. They both get fat F's for this but I put more onus on the president as he is one person vs. say congress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 04:01 PM) I'm sick of the pissing contest...well we could do it if the other side would...we would do it if the other side would. At some point, cut the s*** and lets at least enact the stuff the general public wants that makes sense. Obama has failed miserably at working with the other party and yes the Repubs have failed too in this regard. They both get fat F's for this but I put more onus on the president as he is one person vs. say congress. Which is exactly the point. Next time there's a Republican President and a Democratic congress, the Democrats just have to refuse to do anything at all, barely keep the lights on, and people will blame the President for not reaching out to them or being nice enough. They literally spelled out that exact strategy and documented it in 2009. It works perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenksismyhero Posted January 22, 2015 Author Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 04:26 PM) Which is exactly the point. Next time there's a Republican President and a Democratic congress, the Democrats just have to refuse to do anything at all, barely keep the lights on, and people will blame the President for not reaching out to them or being nice enough. They literally spelled out that exact strategy and documented it in 2009. It works perfectly. It requires two parties to reach an impasse. Obama is as much to blame as the Repubs. If you want to pass something, give up something. It's call compromise. It's been rare that's he's been willing to do it, just like the Repubs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balta1701 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 05:33 PM) It requires two parties to reach an impasse. Obama is as much to blame as the Repubs. If you want to pass something, give up something. It's call compromise. It's been rare that's he's been willing to do it, just like the Repubs. No it doesn't. If one side says no to anything that's not their 100% ideal, that creates an impasse even if they're given 99% of what they want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeSox Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 22, 2015 -> 04:35 PM) No it doesn't. If one side says no to anything that's not their 100% ideal, that creates an impasse even if they're given 99% of what they want. such as explicitly and categorically refusing to allow anyone nominated for various positions (e.g. head of the CFPB) to come to a vote in the Senate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthSideSox72 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 The continued mythologization (is that a word?) of Ronald Reagan is one of the most bizarre parts of politics today in my eyes. He's been turned into something he simply wasn't. I mean, the guy's administration was responsible for the revolution in use of block grants to the states (which GOP'ers rail against today), he was FOR amnesty for illegal immigrants (same), he dramatically increased (or signed off on increased) government spending even beyond inflation (same), and he oversaw a huge wave of land protections for environmental purposes (same). Yes he pushed drops in tax rates on the higher brackets, yes he deserves credit for pushing the USSR over the brink they were already pretty much headed towards and did it smartly. If he were to run for the GOP Presidential nomination today, he would be laughed off the stage for being far too liberal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts