What Grade Would You Give Obama for First 100 Days?

[SirJosephPorter]

Highest in history? Or just average? Did you miss post # 209 of this thread? I quote from it:

And when you look at "strongly approve" vs "strongly disapprove" he dropped 27 points in 100 days.

Firstfire, Rasmussen is the pollster of the far right. He was a columnist for a while for the far right website, WorldNetDaily. So naturally his polls are slanted towards far right, against Obama.

I have had this discussion with Yukon Jack before. Just before the election (where Obama won so convincingly), Rasmussen was showing the race to be a dead heat, with just 3 or 4 points separating the two (statistically insignificant margin).

Just a few days before, his one day polling (in three day tracking poll) showed him that McCain was ahead by 47% to 46%. He gleefully reported it on his website (even though one has to look at all the three days of the tracking poll, it is nonsense to look at just one day from the three day poll). He claimed that McCain is gaining momentum and that he will surpass Obama in the next few days.

There were celebrations on far right websites like Townhall, posters were giddy with excitement. Quite a few of them were quoting the Rasmussen poll.

So Rasmussen is an operative of the far right, his polls are totally unreliable.

CNN poll on the other hand, was spot on; they predicted that Obama will win by 7%. They also accurately predicted the margin in several battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Missouri etc.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Quoting SirJosephPorter
It was only proper that Obama implement the measures that he had promised during the campaign. I would say it is a very good thing that he got such a strong majority in the Congress. If Congress had been evenly split between the two parties, very likely nothing would have got done and we would have slid into a full fledged depression.

You think the worst is over? It's just begun. – Firstfire.

No doubt you wish, Firstfire, you wish. Republicans have been wishing from day one that Obama fails, so that they can come back to power again (there is the famous footage of Limbaugh, yelling at the top of his voice ‘I hope he fails’). Republicans are totally bereft of new ideas, so their only hope is that Obama fails and people vote them in once again.

However, it was one thing to wish that Bush fails. At that time economy was roaring ahead (thanks to Clinton) and Bush failing would have meant a recession, perhaps a mild one.

However, it is something totally different to wish that Obama fails. We are currently in deep recession, and what you and your ilk are doing is wishing a depression upon USA, Canada and the whole world. If Obama fails, we can look at 25% unemployment, untold amount of misery, mayhem and pain. It will last for years, perhaps more than ten years.

And you would wish all that on the people, just so your party can be elected once again? Incredible. How about your party trying to come up with some new ideas, trying to attract young people, minorities, women etc, try to broaden the base of your party from white, older males? Or is that too difficult a task?

Personally, I have no idea if Obama will succeed or not (there are early hopeful signs, however). However, I wish him all the best, I hope he succeeds. The consequences of failure are too horrible to contemplate.

 

[captain morgan]

The Republican philosophy is that the country must be ruined, destroyed first before republicans can win the election, take over and rescue it.

That is exactly what Obama is doing... The sheer size of the stimulus package will beggar the US economy for decades to come.

 

[JLM]

That is exactly what Obama is doing... The sheer size of the stimulus package will beggar the US economy for decades to come.

I think we'll have to wait and see. I'm not in favour of printing money that can't be supported but I'm not sure that is what is happening. Interest rates are rock bottom right now, so as long as the money is in the hands that can make the best use of it that's the main thing. Obama seems to be doing something right in taking steps to ensure accountability. It's all to do with supply and demand and the longer the recession goes on the greater the demand. Markets are starting to turn the corner, so I think we have to give Obama a year or so to see what the trend will be.

 

[captain morgan]

I won't challenge the points that you make JLM, however, at the end of teh day, that money is still owed. Factor in that China, Japan and teh UK all hold an enormous amount of US T-bills and their fear is that if Obama dilutes their money supply (as he is doing), the value of those T-bills will fall relative to the strength of the greenback.

The irony here is that the USA will now take its place in the same arena is Canada as a highly indebted nation.... The kicker is that the socio-economics in the USA are vastly different than Canada. The point (in the USA) may be reached where the cash (held by relatively few) flees the nation and leaves the rest to deal with a crushing debt-load.

 

[darkbeaver]

Personally, I have no idea if Obama will succeed or not (there are early hopeful signs, however). However, I wish him all the best, I hope he succeeds. The consequences of failure are too horrible to contemplate.

Before we judge what constitutes success it would be intelligent to define the determining benchmarks.
It would be very stupid to take the man for his word, which of course is entirely worthless. Obamas success will result in a total state of chaos of unrivaled human horror and murder such as has never been seen since biblical days. If Obama fails mankind wins. I wish him nothing less than complete frustration and a reward comensurate with his duplicity.

 

[ironsides]

SirJosephPorter: Republicans or any American for that matter would be out of their minds to want Obama to fail, the country wouldn't survive another 1-2 years of running around bumping into each other saying what do we do now. The positive thing is that at least for now things are looking pretty good economically, home values are starting to recover people are starting to find work.

 

[ironsides]

Before we judge what constitutes success it would be intelligent to define the determining benchmarks.
It would be very stupid to take the man for his word, which of course is entirely worthless. Obamas success will result in a total state of chaos of unrivaled human horror and murder such as has never been seen since biblical days. If Obama fails mankind wins. I wish him nothing less than complete frustration and a reward comensurate with his duplicity.

Your last sentence makes a lot of sense, if Obama fails you starve, that simple. I don't care what country you live in, U.S. goes under so do you.

 

[Extrafire]

Really? Well, human eye can differentiate only so much. The red colour you see is a mixture of several different colours. There is no way the color will have exactly the same wavelength all over; it will differ from one place to another on the flag by at least a few nanometers.

What you see as one color is actually a spectrum of colors. Color red has a wavelength of about 650 nm (I looked it up). But it actually is a spectrum from say, 620 to 680 nm. If you measure the wavelength of the light emanating from the flag, it probably will show a range of colors different shades of red (which are not discernible to the naked eye).

So, you say the color is red, a spectrograph will say it is a range of colors. Which reality is t he correct one? Is your reality the correct one because you say so?

The fact is, all the realities are correct. If your bro-in-law is color blind, then the color he sees (with his limited abilities) is his reality. If you (with your limited abilities) see only one color, red, that is your reality. It is all subjective.

Scientific reality, now that is different. Scientific reality here is that it is a range of colors, with the average wavelength around 650 nm (the color red). Scientific reality is the objective reality. What we observe is the subjective reality. Subjective reality holds in the field of politics (who is the better politician?), economics (where is the economy headed?), religion (which is the true God?) etc. Objective reality rules in physics, chemistry, biology, etc.

Well you did quite well in expanding on my analogy. You described very well the difference between perspective and reality. So you do know the difference!

But in the middle of all that you still describe perception as reality. This can only mean that while you know what reality is, you pretend not to because you have to in order to maintain your ideology. If you admit the truth then you admit that your ideology is wrong, and you just can't do that. You're not only lying to me, you're lying to yourself, and you know it.

 

[Extrafire]

What is he doing? I assume he is hoping from the sidelines that Obama fails, he takes his cue from his guru, drug addict Rush Limbaugh.

The Republican philosophy is that the country must be ruined, destroyed first before republicans can win the election, take over and rescue it. So I assume he is hoping for another Great Depression. Then his party will win by a landslide.

This is what is called a strawman argument. Distort your opponents argument and restate it with a completely different meaning and argue against the distortion, thereby avoiding having to actually answer the real points.

Problem is you aren't very good at it. You're too obvious.

Here are your distortions/lies:
1. he takes his cue from his guru, drug addict Rush Limbaugh.
Truth - Limbaugh is not my guru, I don't listen to him (although I have heard him a couple times) and I don't take any cues from him.

2. The Republican philosophy is that the country must be ruined, destroyed first before republicans can win the election, take over and rescue it.
Truth - Republican philosophy is that the country is in dire straits and needs conservative measures to stop its decline.

3. So I assume he is hoping for another Great Depression.
Truth - I fear that we are in another great depression. I'm hoping that we aren't.

4. I assume he is hoping from the sidelines that Obama fails
That is true. If Obama's programs succeed it will have devastating consequences for the US and the world. I'm hoping that the US recovers and does well, but I can't see how that's possible the way he's going.

 

[Extrafire]

Firstfire, Rasmussen is the pollster of the far right. He was a columnist for a while for the far right website, WorldNetDaily. So naturally his polls are slanted towards far right, against Obama.

I have had this discussion with Yukon Jack before. Just before the election (where Obama won so convincingly), Rasmussen was showing the race to be a dead heat, with just 3 or 4 points separating the two (statistically insignificant margin).

Just a few days before, his one day polling (in three day tracking poll) showed him that McCain was ahead by 47% to 46%. He gleefully reported it on his website (even though one has to look at all the three days of the tracking poll, it is nonsense to look at just one day from the three day poll). He claimed that McCain is gaining momentum and that he will surpass Obama in the next few days.

There were celebrations on far right websites like Townhall, posters were giddy with excitement. Quite a few of them were quoting the Rasmussen poll.

So Rasmussen is an operative of the far right, his polls are totally unreliable.

CNN poll on the other hand, was spot on; they predicted that Obama will win by 7%. They also accurately predicted the margin in several battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Missouri etc.

I thought I told you already you don't have to say all that. We all know that any person or organization (and that includes polling companies) that disagrees with you is by definition a radical right wing nut case, not to be trusted or believed. We've heard it all before, same tune, different post. Denial of reality. Right. I get it.

 

[Extrafire]

You think the worst is over? It's just begun. – Firstfire.

No doubt you wish, Firstfire, you wish. Republicans have been wishing from day one that Obama fails, so that they can come back to power again (there is the famous footage of Limbaugh, yelling at the top of his voice ‘I hope he fails’). Republicans are totally bereft of new ideas, so their only hope is that Obama fails and people vote them in once again.

However, it was one thing to wish that Bush fails. At that time economy was roaring ahead (thanks to Clinton) and Bush failing would have meant a recession, perhaps a mild one.

However, it is something totally different to wish that Obama fails. We are currently in deep recession, and what you and your ilk are doing is wishing a depression upon USA, Canada and the whole world. If Obama fails, we can look at 25% unemployment, untold amount of misery, mayhem and pain. It will last for years, perhaps more than ten years.

And you would wish all that on the people, just so your party can be elected once again? Incredible. How about your party trying to come up with some new ideas, trying to attract young people, minorities, women etc, try to broaden the base of your party from white, older males? Or is that too difficult a task?

Personally, I have no idea if Obama will succeed or not (there are early hopeful signs, however). However, I wish him all the best, I hope he succeeds. The consequences of failure are too horrible to contemplate.

Well here's Fred Thompson explaining what the government is doing.
=http://fredpac.blip.tv/rss/flash&brandname=blip.tv&brandlink=http://blip.tv/%3Futm_source%3Dbrandlink&enablejs=true

I know, I know, he's a right wing radical and we can't believe anything he says. Besides, that was still when Bush was prez. OK, here's another clip showing what's happening under Obama. Looks like he took Freds advice, not realizing it was sarcasm.

YouTube - Inconvenient Debt - Glenn Beck
Don't bother, SJP. We know. FOX and Glenn Beck are right wing radicals and we can't believe anything they say.

What's going to happen when he can't spend any more? This downturn will have a bit of a dead cat bounce with all the stimulus, but it's by no means over. And that's only part of what he's doing. On top of saddling the economy and taxpayers with mind boggling debt and devalued money, he's going to hammer it with carbon taxes and regulations, and a socialized economy. If he succeeds in doing all that stuff, can the US ever recover? That's why we hope he fails in his programs, because if he succeeds, the damage will be incalculable and the current depression may be permanent.

 

[ironsides]

Worst Slide Story - The classic "West Side Story" is enjoying its Broadway revival. Now comes the remix, "Worst Slide Story."
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/opinion/walthandelsman/blog/2009/04/animation_recession_singalong_1.html

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Well you did quite well in expanding on my analogy. You described very well the difference between perspective and reality. So you do know the difference!

But in the middle of all that you still describe perception as reality. This can only mean that while you know what reality is, you pretend not to because you have to in order to maintain your ideology. If you admit the truth then you admit that your ideology is wrong, and you just can't do that. You're not only lying to me, you're lying to yourself, and you know it.

Now you finally get it, Firstfire, perception is reality in fields such as politics, economics, philosophy, religion etc. So there can be many different realities.

In science now, there is only one reality (if we leave aside the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle).

What people do is that they take the scientific concept of reality and then try to use it in non scientism area. Thus, law of gravity is well established and nobody takes issue with that. It is a reality, there is no other reality.

But in real life, such is not the case. Thus law of supply side economics is right or wrong, depending upon one’s perspective. Bush was the greatest president ever or the worst president ever, depending upon one’s perspective. Both are realities.

Indeed, many times even when it comes to physical sciences, we regard perception as reality. Continuing with the example of red light, we call it a red light; we don’t call lit a range of colors (which average at red). Even in legal language, a person may be accused of driving through red a light, not going through a light with a range of colors.

And many times it is difficult to tell which is perception and which is reality. So in effect there are many realities in real life (but not in science).

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Truth - Republican philosophy is that the country is in dire straits and needs conservative measures to stop its decline.

Maybe so, Firstfire. But we just had election, people soundly rejected Republican philosophy. While people agreed that the country was in dire straits, they rejected Republican solutions for it. When Republicans are constantly sniping at Obama, hoping that he fails, they only hurt themselves, they look ridiculous, they are not hurting Obama one bit.

Truth - I fear that we are in another great depression. I'm hoping that we aren't.

That is not how you (and many Republicans) come across. Republicans are licking their chops, gleefully waiting for Obama to fail, for the economy to come crashing down to 25% unemployment so that Republicans could win elections again. Personally I think that is totally the wrong way to win elections, by hoping that country plunges into a depression.

That is true. If Obama's programs succeed it will have devastating consequences for the US and the world. I'm hoping that the US recovers and does well, but I can't see how that's possible the way he's going.

So here we are agreed. You (and most republicans are hoping that Obama will fail, that we will have a depression, with 25% unemployment, plenty of misery, mayhem, pain so that your lot can get back in power.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

I thought I told you already you don't have to say all that. We all know that any person or organization (and that includes polling companies) that disagrees with you is by definition a radical right wing nut case, not to be trusted or believed. We've heard it all before, same tune, different post. Denial of reality. Right. I get it.

Of course I had to say all this. I think Rasmussen is a pollster of the right and far right and I gave the reasons for my opinion.

Any person or organization that holds far right views is a right wing nut case. It has nothing to do with disagreeing with me. There are many politicians, many organizations with whom I disagree, and whom I don’t regard as nut cases. Harper, Peter McKay, John McCain, John Tory (former Conservative Party leader in Ontario) etc.

On the other hand, I regard Rush (drug addict) Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Stockwell Day etc. as very much nut cases.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Don't bother, SJP. We know. FOX and Glenn Beck are right wing radicals and we can't believe anything they say.

By George, you are finally beginning to get it, Firstfire. Glenn Beck? Give me a break.

That's why we hope he fails in his programs, because if he succeeds, the damage will be incalculable and the current depression may be permanent.

You don’t know what you are wishing for, when you hope that Obama fails. I will explain it in a later post. No doubt on surface it looks very attractive to you. Obama will fail, then Republicans will win control of Senate and House in 2010, and win the Residency in 2012 and everybody will live happily ever after. You are totally ignoring how much pain and misery Obama’s failure will cause. As I said, I will explain it in a later post.

 

[lone wolf]

Of course I had to say all this. I think Rasmussen is a pollster of the right and far right and I gave the reasons for my opinion.

Any person or organization that holds far right views is a right wing nut case. It has nothing to do with disagreeing with me. There are many politicians, many organizations with whom I disagree, and whom I don’t regard as nut cases. Harper, Peter McKay, John McCain, John Tory (former Conservative Party leader in Ontario) etc.

On the other hand, I regard Rush (drug addict) Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Stockwell Day etc. as very much nut cases.

I wonder how many folks consider Joey P a nut case?

 

[captain morgan]

Truth - I fear that we are in another great depression. I'm hoping that we aren't.

Republicans are licking their chops, gleefully waiting for Obama to fail, for the economy to come crashing down to 25% unemployment so that Republicans could win elections again. Personally I think that is totally the wrong way to win elections, by hoping that country plunges into a depression.

Obama is ensuring the failure. It doesn't take an economist or a political analyst to figure this one out.

No different than what Trudeau did to Canada, Obama is beggaring the USA and they won't recover for many decades to come.

 

[SirJosephPorter]

Obama is ensuring the failure. It doesn't take an economist or a political analyst to figure this one out.

No different than what Trudeau did to Canada, Obama is beggaring the USA and they won't recover for many decades to come.

Surely you jest, Captain. I thought Republicans will gain control of Senate and House in 2010, win the Presidency in 2012, unemployment will drop to 4% (from 25%) and everybody will live happily ever after.