| bigdom2786 said: That's the problem....he has put some effort into this...obviously there's a situiation taht's going on that he doesnt want say so the country doesnt go into panic mode and is trying fine the solution. but when the media wants a conference every single day what are you gonna do: deny? In this day and age that'll quickly start rumors and bring his rating down worse than it is now. The man has been in office not that long and this plan hasnt even been put in effect fully yet. And without the plan we still probably would have been in a bad position. The only thing i dont like is the turnaround we're getting and even the Republicians don't care cuz they're too busy looking at throwing out Sotomayor.... In the end I rather agree to disagree and let this die...cuz until we see the end result neither one of us is gonna be right. |
Well I'm not saying he hasn't put forth effort or done nothing, on the contrary I think he has tried some things - I just don't think they are working. As for the media I would point out that Bush had 4 prime time interviews during his presidency and Obama has already matched him...so yeah I think it's safe to say he is overly exposed thus far. You are however completely right that he has to have some public face - if I gave the impression I wanted him to dissappear then I apologize because you are correct that you have to have some public presence to be a leader (I actually think this is one of Bush's faults people rarely list).
The problem with his press conferences isn't so much that he is having them as it is that he isn't saying anything concrete or advancing the discussion at all. He comes out, delivers the same lines and talks about the same things he has been and then the numbers go down because people didn't hear a plan or anything new.
Again I will agree that the plan isn't fully into effect yet but it has started going into effect and we have some early results. The thing is, saying "without the plan we would still be in a bad spot" is missing the point - There are degrees of how bad things are, 8% unemployment is uncomfortable 10% is worrisome, 12% is ...well lets hope we don't get there. But we can rest assured we will probably hit 10% pretty quickly regardless of what happens and 10% is 25% worse than what Obama said was possible under his plan.
As for republicans and Sotomayor...not quite true. Most of them seem to have accepted her approval and there are Republican ideas being put forth on Healthcare reform and there was a Republican plan for stimulus. They aren't just doing nothing - allthough if you listen to the normal media outletts (ie CNN, MSNBC, and even FNC) you would have that impression. The issue is that Pelosi and the hard-liberals are running the show and they don't even want Blue-Dog dems in the room when it comes to formulating legislation (as we saw earlier today when they threatened to walk on healthcare if Blue-Dogs were allowed to set some terms for their votes).
And I haven't even brought up this whole Czar mess....I mean really? Does anyone think this Czar thing is a genuinely good idea?
As for agree to disagree - this much we definitely agree on, I doubt either of us expects to convince the other completely but the debate itself is still an important exercise. 
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
