This from Sunday interview on This Week. Transcript
quote:
Obama Signals His Reluctance to Look Into Bush Policies
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By DAVID JOHNSTON and CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: January 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama signaled in an interview broadcast Sunday that he was unlikely to authorize a broad inquiry into Bush administration programs like domestic eavesdropping or the treatment of terrorism suspects. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/u...quire.html?_r=1
quote:
Obama sees campaign promises fade
In this photograph provided by ABC News, President-elect Barack Obama is interviewed by George Stephanopoulos during the taping of "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009, at the Newseum in Washington. (AP Photo/"This Week," Lauren Victoria Burke, ABC News)
President-elect Barack Obama said Americans will have to sacrifice to lift the nation from recession and acknowledged that some of his campaign promises may not be fulfilled because of what he described as a dire economic situation. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-promises-fade/
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As the economic situation has grown more dire, however, Obama's advisers have hinted in recent weeks that they may wait two years and allow the tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, fearful of the impact of raising taxes during a sharp recession. And in an interview with CNBC Wednesday night, Obama himself said he had not yet decided what he would do. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/th...ml?hpid=topnews
Thing that gets me it was obvious all of these bold initiatives weren't going to be possible, especially after the economy bust. But Obama kept making strong declarations, only now reneging on them. After all the hype, he better make extraordinary progress in something or we're going to see a one term presidency. Still infinitely better than the alternative candidates.
The17sss
It was inevitable. He couldn't possibly maintain the level of expectations he ran for office with. He's even retaining some of the CIA deputies that oversaw Bush's interrogation policies (Stephen R. Kappes). I know that has some of the anti-war crowd ringing their hands.
Magnetonium
As I said before ... its becoming all too familiar.
Change that you can believe in?
hardcore trancer
I feel sorry for those who really thought he could actually change anything.
Originally posted by hardcore trancer
I feel sorry for those who really thought he could actually change anything.
Jesus H Christ, can we let the guy get 15 seconds actually in office before we lambast what he hasn't even attempted yet? :stongue: :stongue:
I agree with Josh that there is a high amount of backpeddaling happening, but this is the president of the united states. You can't just do whatever you want, it doesn't work that way. (unless you're GWB and have a Dick Cheney equivalent)
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by josh4
Still infinitely better than the alternative candidates.
this upcoming gynormous stimulus package crap wouldn't be nearly half as big ($1+ trillion!!!!) under a McCain presidency and would be free of pork as well and thus be "infinitely better".
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by Clovis
Jesus H Christ, can we let the guy get 15 seconds actually in office before we lambast what he hasn't even attempted yet? :stongue: :stongue:
i agree, but...
quote:
I agree with Josh that there is a high amount of backpeddaling happening, but this is the president of the united states. You can't just do whatever you want, it doesn't work that way. (unless you're GWB and have a Dick Cheney equivalent)
...the point here is there shouldn't be such clear distinctions between what Obama has said he'd do and what he actually will do or what he's capable of doing.
Obama said a lot of things to a lot of people on the shallow effort of just trying to be chosen to be POTUS and not predicating his rhetoric on the fact of what he will do once he is POTUS. they're two different things and thats just wrong however you look at it if you don't see him for what he truly is, a politician. thats not his fault to be honest, it's your fault
as far as being the POTUS and not being able to do what you want is absurd. the very nature of the office and the laws that apply to it afforded to him by the Constitution are, for one man, very broad and in many ways omnipotent with respect to his/her branch of government.
NOTHING Bush has done in Office the last 8 years hasn't been done previously by other Presidents...NOTHING! he just took it to a different level and you can make your arguments from there. but to say in the same breath that a POTUS isn't free to do "whatever he wants" then say that the previous President did makes no sense if you have been paying attention.
Clovis
I don't mean literally, I mean politically. George Bush had absolutely 0 qualms ing anyone over politically unless they were Republican and did what he wanted.
Q5echo
quote:
Originally posted by Clovis
George Bush had absolutely 0 qualms ing anyone over politically unless they were Republican and did what he wanted.
really? how about immigration?
...or the TARP?...or the SURGE! plenty of GOP annimosity has been going around for years, YEARS!!!!!!!!!!! but again, you don't pay attention
this isn't and shouldnt be about W
shaolin_Z
Ooooo! Shocking! :rolleyes:
Q5echo
"What is new about this transition, or at least relatively new—unlike the Carter-Reagan, Reagan-Bush, Bush-Clinton, and Clinton-Bush change-overs—is that an entire sector of the country has been convinced by an intellectual establishment—in the media, universities, foundations, the fringes of the Democratic Party, the arts, Hollywood, etc.—that Obama arrives to end quasi-fascistic rule and radically change U.S. foreign policy to win back over the world's good will."
But when we look at actual specifics and ignore the boilerplate mainstream liberal rhetoric about "multilateralism" and "rebuilding our alliances," and also ignore the "inside" horror stories (cf. the recent Vanity Fair Bush hit-piece) by failures and opportunists like a Scott McClellan or Matthew Dowd, we really do not see very much.
Already there is back-peddling on FISA, the Patriot Act, and renditions. Who knows what the plan is on Gitmo, other than to keep promising prompt its closing, while keeping it open as lawyers wonder whether Khalid Sheik Mohammed might in fact welcome a federal trial in D.C. or New York—in hopes
that one juror could be found to be sympathetic to a radical Islamic agenda and thus nullify the evidence presented and free the ultimate murderer of 3,000 innocents?
I don't doubt that hope and change rhetoric, from a non-traditional charismatic leader, won't do some good abroad, but on key issues—Iraq, Afghanistan, probably the Middle East and Iran, NATO, missile defense, China, India, North Korea, etc.—Sec. Clinton won't be doing much differently from Sec. Rice. Sec. Gates won't be different from Sec. Gates. One can scream "neo-con" all day long, but at the end of the day getting rid of two horrific dangerous regimes, and promoting democracy in their place for 50 million people is hardly John Foster Dulles redux.
Perhaps on climate change there will be a break with the past. But recent studies suggesting the evidence on manmade planet warming is far from clear, coupled with a recession (nothing stops greenhouse gases like plant shutdowns and less driving), argue likewise that Obama, despite the soaring wind and solar rhetoric, may not rush to reintroduce Kyoto and that his policies will be closer to the last two years of Bush than to Al Gore's.
In short, Bush's supposedly diabolical neocon foreign policy was actually pretty mainstream other than the cacophony—over removing Saddam and staying on to foster democracy—in fall 2002-spring 2003. Obama's alternative world view was pretty much campaign rhetoric to position himself to the left of Hillary in the primary and sound hip to the big-donor liberal Left and is passing with the seasons.
On matters of a "new ethos" and "not doing business as usual," I think one could legitimately argue that the Obama transition ethical lapses—Richardson, the Treasury Secretary nominee's Rangelesque tax problems, the Blago tapes to come surrounding the Obama Senate seat—already dwarf the surrealistic Libby matter during the eight years of the Bush administration. And when the administration actually begins, we will have dozens of Clintonites on the loose bumping into an equal number of Daleyite Chicagoans—an interesting ethical nexus to say the least, as Rahm Emanuel may emblemize.
What are we left, then, other than a sort of campaign con? Obama will better articulate the old Bush positions. The hard Left will quiet down about the Patriot Act and Iraq,and cease the anti-American rhetoric, as upbeat diversity rhetoric trumps the old downbeat unilateralism.Michael Moore won't be making any more documentaries about a fascistic President, and Knopf won't be publishing any novels like Checkpoint about a sitting President. I think Obama, with a few low-level appointments, an occasional pep talk at the annual ACLU meeting or an invite to the editors of The Nation for a chat in the Oval Office, can pretty much count on an inexpensive 10-cents-on-the dollar bought ride from the once vociferous Left.
The mass hysteria will subside, and historians will come to apprise the Hope and Change summer and fall of 2008 as one of the most curious episodes of mass hysteria in American history. And now let the governance begin."
