Really? why should we be doing anything for Japan or Libya? We have too many problems at home in our own country to be worrying about everyone else. I cringe at the fact that he is doing as much as he is doing when it comes to Libya. How about we save a whole bunch of money, and a whole bunch of American lives and keep out of Libya. It is none of our business what is happening there. Period.

Dunno, but Barack got 29 of 32 right in his NCAA bracket.

And when we talk about weak – aren’t we forgetting Jimmy Carter?

Well, if a British tabloid declares Obama “the weakest president in history,” I guess it’s a done deal.

President Obama is a US president, not President of the World. Frankly, anyone who thinks that what a president is doing is what they tell you about on the news just doesn’t have a grip on history. Presidents “do” all sorts of things without announcing it in a press conference. Japan has gotten every assistance it has asked for and the path that has been pursued with Libya has been 100% more reasonable than what Bush did with Iraq and we could certainly argue over other interventions, like Somalia and Bosnia. If you like the way Hilary is handling things, you should thank Obama: he is giving her the orders.

“Presidents “do” all sorts of things without announcing it in a press conference.”

No they don’t ESO. Not if they have any brains. Clearly, he’s a smart guy, but he’s losiong a million opportunities to get the American people and the world on his side by articulating his agenda. Even if it’s just a symbolic gesture, you have to tell people what your strategy is if you want them to buy in. Why is he not doing that? Why is he going into Lybia without an announced goal and with no exit strategy. Has he learned nothing from Bush’s mistakes?

You can’t just say “he’s doing stuff” and give him a pass. Not if you want any credibility. His own party is not giving him that much credit.

Wait for the results and actions in Libya not words from Obama. 110 US missles has just been lauched to take out the Libya air defense system . 100 ships from the coalition heading to the region to start a blockade. Oil sales assets are being frozen. This should be a effort of international community and it takes time to put such a coalition together.

Obama is hardly the weakest President when he has sent drones to Pakistan to kill Al Queda and Talliban and increased US forces in the region.

I get the impression that Obama wants to be president of the things that are interesting to him personally and can’t be bothered with the rest.

And for all the hype to the supposed contrary, his world view seems exceptionally narrow. He just doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and doesn’t appear to be interested in finding out.

I have to admit that I experience a little bit of schadenfreude when I hear about him perpetuating the Bush policies that he campaigned against.

It appears that Obama’s single positive legacy would be health care. But I don’t think that will survive past his time in office because the law itself was so poorly written it will not survive the judicial restrictions and legislative attacks/defundings. Never mind that any serious person knows that we don’t have the money to pay for the entitlement programs we have now and before we cut those it is going to be much easier to kill an entitlement program that doesn’t yet have a built in constituency. Once Obama is out of office, health care is dead. I can’t tell you if the death will be slow and painful or quick, but it cannot survive. Measuring Obama’s presidency in the absence of that single major accomplishment and his historical footnote is reduced to being the first black president.

Hillary doesn’t look good because she implemented any particular WH policy, but because she appears to be one of the few capable adults in the administration.

Leadership is jumping into a situation as fast as possible, no matter the outcome.

Luckily I know better than to make my opinion about politics from what the British press or Annegb says.

It is not weakness, it is lateness. He eventually addresses these big issues, but he waits to long and it makes him look indecisive.

Ann Althouse makes an interesting Obama/Clinton observation:

“It’s the opposite of the Code Pink idea that women bring the peace. How long have I heard this feminist plaint: If only women had the power, we would have peace, not phallocratic war.”

“To ally with Power and Rice, Clinton had to make “an unusual break with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who, along with the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and the counterterrorism chief, John O. Brennan, had urged caution.” Oh, timid men. Step aside! Yield to the boldness of women.”

#10 Jana: Yup, he seems disengaged.

#11 Bart: Are you sure he sent them in? I’m thinking that somebody probably begged, shouted and screamed. Like Hillary probably did in this case.

So, Eso, I don’t think he told her what to do, I think he finally took a deep sigh and said, “Okay, if you insist.”

#13 Mac: You know, she has always come across capable. I recall being very impressed by her when Clinton first ran for president. I’m disappointed in her for supporting him in his rapes of women, but like I said, she looks better and better all the time.

#14 Clark: I always thought Carter was a good and caring person. Just not a good president. He did good there, though.

#15 jjohnsen: Yup.

#16: Missed that, dang. I was at work. I tried to bring it up somewhere, but couldn’t find it. Maybe today. I want to hear what he has to say.

#17 Ed: But lateness IS indecisive, isn’t it?

#18 Devyn: Yeah, it is offensive. I believe Juanita Broaderick when she says she was raped. He’s a rapist.

#19 Mac: Rescued you from moderation. Your quote about Gates Donilon and Brennan makes me wonder if they’re the ones contributing to the indecisiveness. Maybe he needs new guidance.

Apparently my comment is in moderation. Not sure why.

Okay, I rescued it. Have you seen her interviews? She claims she was strong-armed by Hillary to deny the rape and she was intimated and in shock. I believe her.

anngb,

Conflicting advice from subordinates isn’t an excuse for indecisiveness. It means he has both sides of the argument and can’t make up his mind.

Annegb”#15 jjohnsen: Yup.”

Amazing.

annegb(#25): Absolutely not true. Here are her words to NBC, in her only lengthy interview ever published by a credible news source (NBC Dateline):

But Broaddrick remained silent when she learned soon after that Clinton was making a bid for the Oval Office.

Broaddrick says she was determined to keep the incident quiet.

Remember that this supposedly happened when Clinton was running for governor for the first time. In the middle of a campaign for governor. He was the sitting AG. And he rapes a woman in her hotel room? And she doesn’t come forward during that campaign, or during the second time he ran for governor, or during his presidential campaign. But over 20 years later, after she already denied the rape under oath, she does an interview and says it happened. And you believe that? Sorry, I don’t. Even if she is telling the truth, she gave up any right to be taken seriously when she swore under oath that it never happened.

Jjohnsen, what did you want, a pint of blood?

Mcq, looking at it from the legal standpoint, you’re right. I still believe her story of what happened–Hillary knew and put pressure on her and too, she was admittedly won over by celebrity and power. I don’t think it’s comparable to Bush or Obama’s supposed Muslim beliefs (I don’t think he believes in deity at all,
frankly. I’d call Bush a lot of things, maybe not a war criminal but he sure went a lot of our young men to a needless death in Iraq.

But Bill Clinton lost me the day I watched her describe what happened in that hotel room. No way was that consensual. But then, probably a lot of powerful men–world leaders or no–get away with rape.

My best hope is that President Obama is employing some of that “genial dunce” routine that Reagan and Eisenhower used so well to deflect attention while they went on with the serious business of governing and winning the Cold War, making reporters and politicians think all they wanted to do was remimisce about Hollywood or play golf until those people got bored and went away.

Looks like Dateline. I wish you could watch it. This woman wasn’t lying. I couldn’t see the reference to her conversation with Hillary, or the referene to something with security, but I’ll find it. I know I saw it. And I believed her. I think the pertinent concern is how many women didn’t report it. Power is a big club to hold, Mcq.

It was in an interview with Sean Hannity that she referred to her conversation with Hillary, June 10, 2003. It’s also significant that she’s not suing or writing a book, or planning a reality series. She gets nothing out of sharing her story.

Oh, Last Lemming, I hope. And pray.

In the interview with Sean Hannity, this is what Juanita Broaddrick claimed concerning Hillary (remember that this is the first and only time she told this story):

She came over to me, took ahold of my hand and said, “I’ve heard so much about you and I’ve been dying to meet you,” or “been wanting to meet you.” I can’t–I’m just paraphrasing–and she said, “I just want you to know how much that Bill and I appreciate what you do for him.”

This woman, this little, soft-spoken–pardon me for the phrase–dowdy woman that would seem unassertive, took ahold of my hand and squeezed it and said, “Do you understand? Everything that you do.”

That’s it. Supposedly that happened some weeks after the alleged rape, and supposedly Ms. Broaddrick interpreted that to mean that Hillary was thanking her for keeping quiet about the rape. But how many people who have actually met Hillary have described her as “soft-spoken” or “unassertive”? She is neither. And how exactly is this exchange supposedly intimidation? It’s not.

Anything’s possible, annegb. I’m just pointing out that calling Clinton a rapist based on this evidence is not reasonable or fair, nor is saying that Hillary intimidated her.

You can believe whatever you want, but when you go from belief to accusations, you cross a line where you better have some good evidence to back up what you are saying. In this case, the evidence is far from good.

Ha! Good deal soul-sister.

Back to the post. I am a conservative so that is my perspective. I have always felt that Hillary would have made a much better president that Obama. For me anyways it is that Hillary is at her core a middle class American. She grew up in Park Ridge Illinois and lived for decades in Arkansas and served on Walmarts board. Putting her in touch with and a part of the broad middle class of America. Obama simply lacks this middle class American background and as a result seems to many of us to be out of step with middle class American values. His path as a red diaper baby, partially foriegn upbringing, mentoring by a full out communist as a teenager, and his Ivy League to trinity church/Hyde Park Chicago as an adult means that he has had little child to adult contact with the average middle class American experience.

Hillary is part of that American middle class experience and thus in my view would be a better president. I also believe that her experiences in Arkansas the whitehouse and as a Senator gave her far far more exp in leadership. In short I think she was qualified while O. was simply not.

And I would not have voted for her.

Obama’s differences are actually one of the reasons I voted for him. He represents the diversity of what America has become–and I’m not talking about skin color (or at least, skin color is just a tiny part of what I’m talking about). The fact that he had a non-Christian (albeit absent) father, and that he spent several years as a child living abroad, sets him apart from other candidates (and a comparison with Palin–who, despite having large sums of money, got her first passport just months before she ran for VP–is especially jarring). Let’s face it–most of us don’t grow up in John Mellencamp’s “Little Pink Houses.” And have you seen the apartment he and his wife lived in when they first got married? Looks pretty middle class to me. Lower middle class, even.

Tell the truth, Tim, my feelings have wavered a bit in the last few days. I feel kind of sorry for him. It does seem like he can’t win. He got all pressured (including from me, although that couldn’t have had any impact) to do something about Libya–to act. Now he’s being criticized forf acting. Like I said, I would HATE to be president. It just doesn’t look like it’s any fun at all.