If you are a liberal or Democrat, I' like to hear from you about what you do not like, or have not liked, about the Obama administration.
I'll go first -
1) Austerity. In Obama's first day in power five years ago, I thought he should have anounced austerity cuts, and big ones. He had the public support to actually go out and say "We're damn near broke" and slash a billion or so off spending. I didn't mind the Stim Pack per se, but I think spending cuts needed to go along side it.
2) Climate Change. Obama has been too passive on this. I'd like to have seen clearer statements of intent, backed by science ordinary people could understand, so that Americans could understand more of the issue.
3) Admitting Error. Maybe it's unreasonable, but with some of the scandals like 'Fast & Furious' I'd always like to see politicians admit that mistakes were made. I think people would respect it more than excuses.
4) Closing the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and the White House. Stop hiring people from lobbies, and put distance between lobbies and positions of responsibility.
5) Cut military spending. I'd like Obama to stand up to the military, and present a long term strategy of reducing spending massively, and converting the military into a force that can deal with guerillas and al Queda, and rely less on cold war thinking.
I resent the stupid notion that somehow liberals don't criticize President Obama. Liberals are forever criticizing everything.
It's the modern Republican party that lacks such self-awareness. If you don't agree with them on every moronic detail of what they stand for, than they call you a RINO and they turf you out of office, i.e. Richard Lugar.
Lemme respond to your concerns;
1) Austerity is what the Europeans did, and it gave them a double-dip recession. But that's what Republicans say we should do even though they then go onto speak out of the other side of their crooked mouths about how we should never follow Europe.
Austerity prevents the economy from growing so that more and more people can pitch into the tax revenue side of things because it cuts jobs, which leads to less spending from the public, which leads to greater insecurity in the markets.
Instead, President Obama did the right thing by enacting the Stimulus. It has given us a fragile recovery instead of a double-dip recession. You have to grow the economy first and then think about smart ways of cutting, just like what he's doing now. Your argument is just wrongheaded on this point and can't be backed up by any empirical data.
2) ****. It's not Obama's job to hold your hand through everything and to give you Sesame Street lessons about climate change. Furthermore, you apparently must not be aware of the fact that under Obama, oil imports are down and oil exports are up. We've actually reversed a very long trend in that regard.
And part of the reason why oil imports have gone down is that green energy has more than doubled in the last 4 years. It's still not where it should be, but we're finally moving in the right direction. His current plan is to pass some austerity measures, close tax loopholes on the rich and major corporations, and invest a little of that in furthering research and development in green technology.
3) Obama doesn't admit mistakes? Funny, I remember him calling it a mistake when he chose the words, "You didn't build that". He called it a mistake. He also said it was a mistake not to explain Obamacare and to be more transparent about it. He just figured that since he got elected on a platform of passing the Public Option, which the majority of the country wanted, that he didn't have to explain compromising that plan in order to pass the Republican version from the 90's in the hopes of getting more support from congressional Republicans. Of course they didn't support it, because no matter what he does, they hate him, even if he tries to pass their own goddamn shit.
4) Point taken. Agreed. He would have score some valuable points had he gotten some big convictions 4 years ago, but seemed too afraid that he'd rock the markets at a time of serious peril to all of us.
5) That's exactly what his plan is to do, except Republicans continue to pass one budget after another that dramatically raises the defense budget. Obama's plan is to basically level off the defense budget at where it was 10 years ago before somehow we decided to have two full-scale wars at the same goddamn time.
The one glaring thing you seem to have omitted is the indefinite detentions of people, which is still allowed to go on. He hasn't added anyone to Gitmo and has only been processing people out of there because he sincerely wants to close it, and he's stopped our global ring of torture, but he still hasn't gone all the way.
My biggest criticism though is that to this day he continues to want so much for the fucktards in the modern Republican party to work with him.
He invites them to breakfast and they pass on it.
Invites them for lunch, they say they've got better things to do.
Invites them even to state dinners, but they don't show up, which is unfuckingprecedented.
He passes on his own popular Public Option plan and opts with the free market-based solution taken directly from them and then they act as though it's evil.
They wonder about him being a foreigner. A communist. A Marxist.
They call him anti-capitalism, even though the Dow is higher than ever and Wall Street profits are at record levels once more.
They call him anti-gun even though he's the President that has allowed for concealed carries in national parks.
Offers them a $4 trillion debt reduction plan with about 60% of it being austerity, but they reject it only for Boehner to run back 18 months later and ask the President if he'll offer the same damn thing again. ******* morons.
They say he's against drilling at home even though it has increased faster than at any other time in modern history.
He comes through on getting Bin Laden and they can't even give him that one, calling him lucky.
At his SOTU a few years ago, one of them shouts at him that he's a liar. Unprecedented.
All they do is treat this President like shit, and all he does is continue to come back and invite them to hangout so they can hash things over and pass something, but I'm supposed to sit here and criticize Obama about this detail and that detail and ignore the fact that racists, birthers, flat-earthers and other assorted know-nothings are clearly a threat to our democracy?
Obama isn't the biggest fish to fry. It's ******* traitors like Ted Cruz, who just made up bullshit about a decorated war veteran and ran with it like it's true that we should be concerned about.
It's McCarthyism we should worried about at this time and not a centrist, moderate President who continues to make more positive changes than negative ones.
