I am much smarter and sharper than you think, so don't tell me who is smart or not, because if people were smart they wouldn't based their vote on a marketing campaign.
At the end of the day...it's just about all you can go on is what people say in marketing themselves as candidates for anything.
Obama hasn't said one thing and done another...he's basically run his administration the way he said he would as a candidate.
I'm disappointed in his inability to get some things done that I envisioned should have been cakewalks with the right strategy. However, I do realize he's a relative newcomer without the political infrastructure or machinery of some of his predecessors. Add to that the fact that he campaigned on changing the status quo and you never know who is playing to be on his side in his face while playing the other side behind his back. After all, many of these people he's dealing with don't want to see certain kinds of reforms when it comes to influence peddling, etc.
But Obama is doing a good job as president under the vast circumstances and allegedly unemployment is the lowest it's been in 2 years. Again, that is a better record than Reagan had of the unemployment circumstance he inherited. Grimace all you want about the fact but the numbers don't lie because they're based on the same benchmarks and methodology.
Failing to close GiTMO and his confusing policy on Libya are low points of his admin for me.
I have misgivings about the healthcare reform package but I understand what he was trying to do...it was just naive IMO.
He and the Demo congress should have given the GOPers an earnest opportunity to add to the debate but at the first sign of their usual politicking he and the Demos should have kicked their asses off the bus then do what they were elected to do...lead the country and make the decisions.
Contrastingly, GOPers just today are signalling they will pass their budget cuts with or without Demos. They're not extending the debate into a door by door guerrilla campaign and allowing Demos to pull at loose threads of their proposals for months...(not that Demos could do it effectively anyway). They are effecting policy and whether the effects of their policies are good or bad...the perception will be that they are getting something done.
But Georges...it's all marketing. One guy recently claimed he wouldn't use US troops for nation building....then proceeded to stack his admin with a bunch of people who had been pining to rebuild Iraq in America's image for years.
Guess what he did at the first opportunity...used US troops to try and rebuild Iraq in America's image.
