Rath said:
Kasz216 said:
That's not true at all... Obama did most of his backpedalling in the first two years of his presidency when he had a democratic majority. Ever since the Republican party took over congress he's moved back towards the "left" as he knew none of those policies would pass. If you look at legislative history you'll note that a few hot button issues are only pushed when they know they won't pass.
Gay rights is one of those.
The healthcare law I'd bet would be another. If the Republicans actually thought they could pass a repeal of healthcare, I doubt they would, because it's too much of a political risk.
As for their handling of things... Iraq was more disasterous then Libya, but those were two very different wars. There wasn't a strong unified arm resistance to support in Iraq.
While Bush's handling of Katrina... Obama's handling of the BP oil spill wasn't exactly great either. Although really neither of those are either of their faults.
In general the problem is that FEMA is a giant mess of an orginzation that ends up getting in local groups way in it's need to overly control everything.
Well that and stupid enviromental laws prevented quicker cleanup of the BP oil because it banned the use of most cleaning boats because the cleaning boats would be counted as "polluting" the water by putting in water because the water that would run through it's ships wouldn't be "clean enough". (You know, despite the fact that it'd be cleaner.)
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His major gay rights promise was Don't Ask Don't Tell - he pushed that through. Some of his promises he couldn't even get through a democratic congress (Freedom of Choice Act anyone?) and some of his promises were never going to happen (He was never going to get somewhere to put Guantanamo prisoners).
The fact that there was no strong unified front in Iraq was part of what was wrong with the war. Libya was an intervention because a budding revolution was about to be crushed and its supporters almost certainly massacred, Iraq didn't have any real national emergency (or any real threat internationally). It was a war for the sake of a war - though I'll admit that if democracy sticks it will have had a net positive outcome.
As for BP - didn't know there had been such criticism of Obama for it. Katrina was a mess though - although you're right that it's probably not fair to lay it all at George's feet.
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He didn't "Push through" Don't ask Don't tell.
Don't ask Don't tell was defeated in court by the "Log Cabin Republicans" and was about to set a precedent that treating someone differeintly because of their sexual prefrence... that even the more bigoted states and areas would be forced to respect and probaly would of set things up to finally get gay marriage legalized via the court system.
He put an injunction on the court order to end don't ask don't tell, filed an appeal and ordered the DA to stall, to give the Democrats enough time to quickly repeal it so they could claim credit for it.
End result was, on appeal by the government, the ruling was overturned because it was a moot point with Don't ask, Don't tell being repealed. Destroying the precedent.
Obama actually ended up dealing gay rights a blow in a craven rush for credit. Had he just let the decision stand I bet we'd have gay marriage by 2014.
Log Cabin Republicans vs US Government + Loving vs Virginia would of been unavoidable even for the most conservative SC justices.
(Log Cabin Republicans being Repubiclan gay rights group who use Abe Lincoln as their symbol because there is some evidence that can be read as Abe Lincoln being gay.)
