Is Obama a Progressive or A Traditionalist?

[LoveLife&Laughter]

The country seems to be split evenly by their opinion, "What is America?"

1/2 claims Obama is trying to change the country.  The other 1/2 + me believe Obama is not trying to change America, but is trying to save the America I grew up with.

I don't believe there is an argument that dysfunctional Congressional politics is a result of an argument about the role of religion and centralized government in our country.  It started during the Revolutionary War years, came to a head again like an infected boil on ones ass during the Civil War years, and now here we are again.  The first time the Confederacy had to be dissolved, the 2nd time the Confederacy failed by force of arms, and the Republicans who called themselves Whigs were so conspicuously dysfunctional, they had to rename themselves "Republicans".  And here we are ...

Who are we?  Who are they?

[Dennis Barsten]

Latest slogan going around Pawns stores today..."Buy now while its still cheap"...?

[The Dyslexic Dodger]

The first atrubutes that come to mind wen i think of President Obama are couragious, circumspect and very quick minded. I suspect that he is primarily progressive wile embraseing traditoinal principles that are suond and workable in contempory culture.

Uor forfathers set forth a profuondly beautiful model to guide future Americans. They wer as inclusive as they cuold be  under the public constraints and the era that they wer speeking. They wer men with human frailitys such as benifiting from the legality of owning human beings.

I think that we do them agraet injustace wen we fial to allow the premise set forth in there model breath and expand as uor citazenship has, as uor culture does.

I see President Obama as not simply a good man..but as a great one. He is flawed and imperfect in many and veried lights. He took on the presidency in a time of deep then deeper divisoin between the the partys. The number of huge issues and future altering desisoins faceing us as a natoin during his presidency are stunning.

He does not have the luxury of takeing on one issue at a time as example military conflicts ,persue and resolve a war- at the expence of setting unemplyment or the financial crisis of having a ageing populatoin setting on a shelf ignored. He must of necessity adress a vast number of critical issues and policys at once. I believe that fact alone leads him to utilize the fundimentaly good traditoinal views melded with a dynamic foreign and domestic progressive viewpionts.  

[ellevan]

Well said, DD.

[Woody Woods]

Good observation.......

[Trish]

Very succinct, and I agree with you.

[The Dyslexic Dodger]

thank yuo ellevan and Woody

[Ioruach]

President Obama is someone I would love to have a couple beers with.

[exedir]

Maybe, the issue is not just policy and positions, which are important, it is leadership.  And in leadership it is not what a person thinks of themselves, thought that ultimately provides the basis of what a person does, it is what is done, what is accomplished and the results.  And a lot of that is seen only in retrospect and after the fact.

The second term is almost always disappointing in that the themes and ideas are in the first administration, the second has to the further implementation of what has already been started.  

We are seeing this in the cabinet appointments.  The proposed candidates are based mostly on having a relationship and being in sync with the president's viewpoints. This is no cabinet of rivals, though the departments they will be leading are to some degree.  State, Defense and the CIA have always had difficulties in rubbing together as to what they do and how they do it and what the president wants and gets as a result.  Now we have a candidate for Treasury that fits the same description of being close and personal with the president.  And we can probably be reassured that the same characteristics will apply to the Attorney General post.

In the end much of what will be accomplished will be based more on the minimum than the maximum of what the president would like to do.  There is no money, no mandate and no consensus on what to do, we are a divided country, a confused society,  wanting leadership, but probably not accepting the ones we have. 

[LoveLife&Laughter]

I can't think of anyone who has shown more leadership lately then Barack Obama.  I know that the hue and cry of the right is that he is not a leader, but compared to the chaos in the Republican Party he sure is a leader.  No one has demonstrated the capability to succeed better despite unbelievable obstructionism since Bill Clinton.

[ellevan]

I agree with you and when the right says "we just want him to lead"...I have to laugh because what they REALLY want is for them to lead in the direction they want to go because they won't accept anything else.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Simplistic minds have simplistic plagiarized meaningless bumper sticker slogans  

[The Dyslexic Dodger]

LLL @ ellevan..BINGO!