The Big Obama Administration Thread

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It is also a powerful indicator that his picks may have been from the 'politics as usual' crowd.

 

Agreed with dmc. And as much as I like Obama (and want him to so succeed), it’s important to keep him accountable. Kudos to martaug for bringing these things up – there was no shortage of similar posts when Bush was in power. * Given the political leaning of most SP members in general, the points he raises may be viewed as crap by many ( and may in fact actually be crap), at least he keeps everyone on their toes.

*I’ll ignore the fact that it was Cheney who was actually calling the shots. (Shooting “accident” pun intended.)

 

I find the whole "politicians can never have made a mistake" rhetoric patently offensive. The only person who can never make a mistake is the one who never challenges himself/herself. In essence, we are being run by an entire generation of politicians who have never taken a chance or extended themselves to the limit.

Just an observation which probably has little to do with the vetting process.

 

I agree with this, and this is not what I took issue with. I take issue with the assertion that because someone he appointed allegedly committed a felony prior to his appointment that Obama is somehow not holding to his "platform of transparency and innovation". Had Obama tried to cover this up, maybe the blogger Martaug quoted would have a point, but Obama never did that*. If Martaug's blogger was merely trying to say that the Obama administration and Congress (they approve the appointees, after all) should be doing a better vetting its people, I'd agree with this guy wholeheartedly. In asserting that this somehow reflects on Obama's efforts to improve government transparency, however, the blogger quickly moves from the relevant to the ridiculous.

* As my wife quipped, isn't it pretty transparent when you fire someone for getting charged with a felony?

 

Drew, i think that the blogger was implying the fact that the people he has appointed haven't been very transparent as most seem to be crooks.

As for the michelle obama stuff, http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/01/chart-michelle-obamas-salary.html

Remember that obama was elected to the illinois senate in 1996 until 2004 for chicago's 13th District. He also was Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee from january '03. The university of chicago is located in his district.
Pretty much looks like typical chicago style "pay to play" to me. They paid his wife so that he would grease the wheels on anything they needed.

PS - never, ever let anybody else check their e-mail on your computer. Friggin' viruses!

 

This is so disappointing that Drew didn't know about this. Once it again it shows what a failure and a train wreck the McCain campaign was. Conservatives spent months trying to get the word out about things like this. McCain was a fool. Not to derail the thread too much, but Republicans have to figure out a way to keep Democrats from voting in their primaries.

 

Thats because mccain wanted to run a campaign without the "usual smear the other guy", if he had it may have been a different contest altogether.

 

What what what?! McCain ran a fully dirty campaign. It was all smears and very little of his own policies. Before the campaign I was actually of the opinion that McCain was one of few reasonable and honest republicans and I felt sorry for him how incredibly dirty Bush was to him in the 2000 primaries. Not long into the campaign I lost any respect I might have had for McCain he was at least as dirty and focusing on smears as Bush had been on him. When the moment of truth came McCain prefered to join the group of Republicans who campaigned through by throwing mud instead of actually trying to run a campaign of his own.

 

That is your opinion and you are welcome to it, however i & others don't feel that way.
The facts don't support you either, as 76% of obamas ads were negative as opposed to 56% for mccains.

 

Ah, I saw some numbers that showed that 100% of McCain's ads were negative. Anyhoo, everyone knows that 80% of all statistics quoted online are made up on the spot.

 

That is worthy of being a signature. Well done.

 

I was thinking of using something similar to that as my next Steven Wright quote:

"42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot."

 

Actually think I have seen it as a signature somewhere, it is a quite common saying.

 

Well the Duckworth nomination should be a slam dunk. She's an impressive woman.

 

I agree completely. I was disappointed when she lost to Peter Roskam in 2006, but only slightly so - as I liked Roskam. He struck me as a very decent moderate Repub, and ran the only clean, non-partisan, non-shrill campaign of any Republican that year. She was running in a very conservative district if I recall, so it says a lot for her that the race was so close between the two as it was.

 

It helped that the republican party targeted that election as a critical (which meant big $$$ to Roskam) -- I was surprised the democrats did not try to match spending in the election. I also didn't think the campaign was very clean -- although most of the mud was slung by NRCC, Roskam should not be considered blameless for some of the deceptions touted by the Republican party.

 

To be honest, I wasn't aware of much beyond Roskam's own ads and personal campaign appearances, which struck me as very classy - so you're probably right. It doesn't surprise me that the NRCC took the low road, however - they always do. They are a remarkably shameful (shameless?) organization.

 

I find these statistics interesting, and not just because of the "made up on the spot" joke. What makes an ad 'negative'? If you use the definition "opposing Obama" then of course all of Mccain's ads were negative, as were Obama's if you use the definition "opposing Mccain". Assuming that an honest statistical analysis was being performed, I'd like to know the criteria the research company used to determine if an ad was "negative".

Don't get me wrong, I know the general idea behind a negative ad -- my definition would be "focussing more on the other fellow's traits than on your own" but that's a little on the vague side, IMHO.

Could you American political junkies find me a link that lists all of Obama's appointments?

 

How did i miss this appointment?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/12/obama-climate-czar-has-socialist-ties/
Carol Browner as climate control czar. Not only is she a certified socialist(member of socialist international) but her husband(former congressman thomas joseph downey) heads a lobbying firm that includes clients involved in energy policy. So she will have to have a waiver & if you believe that her husband isn't going to have some influence with her, you are fooling yourself.

So all you people in rich countries, Bad!, Bad!, you are doing to well & we need to make your life harder.
Oh yeah, she is also an al gore protege, so she doesn't believe in dissenting views.