Obama administration is being humbled

[Harmony Blue]

Centralism is nice for winning general elections, but it is a total train wreck when it comes to governing and enacting real change. Many of us saw this long ago and it is painful to watch this slow motion train wreck unfold. I think the Obama administration has been reeling so far this year, and it is sad in a way. The reason being the focus isn't about job creation or an improving economy. Most unfortunate, but that is the price you pay for straddling the fence too long. It's going to hurt haha.

Obama administration needs to come back to earth and start to seriously have some honest, transparent dialogue with its core base.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. You're blaming his "centrism" for his lack of ability to govern with the Republican Tea Party

running amok?

[Harmony Blue]

3. Obama is a center left President

The tea party is not relevant in the way the Obama administration chooses to govern. In some aspects he is more liberal than President Clinton and in some aspects more conservative than President Clinton.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. I pegged him as a centrist Dem from the get-go (it was all in his book actually)

and he has governed accordingly- some things he has been more progressive on and some things he's been a little more conservative but I've been mostly satisfied with how he's governed the country given the pretty extraordinary and occasionally bizarre circumstances he's had to govern under.

[DonViejo]

7. Yes, of course!! It's something akin to "blame the victim(s)" nt

[TwilightGardener]

2. This is silly poo.

[Greybnk48]

4. You mean like "put in his place?"

This is offensive, IMO.

[warrior1]

5. bullshit

[upaloopa]

6. I like Obama but he is no LBJ or Jack Kennedy.

He just isn't forceful enough. He won't play smash mouth football. I am afraid these 8 years will be a disappointment to me. Obama talks a good show put he can't make it happen. I know he has an unwilling congress but so did LBJ and we got the civil rights bill and the voting rights act bill passed with Strom Thurman in the congress. Hell LBJ was from Texas!
I think Obama would have been a better President if he had more years of politics under his belt.

[Harmony Blue]

9. This is true

The only area where I was caught by surprise is how aggressive the Obama administration is on the war or terror. Arguably more aggressive than the previous two administrations.

With that said, I don't feel, in my opinion, Obama mislead how he would govern, but it seems to me that his goal of working together in unity is a noble one. But it seems pragmatic on the surface, but when the opposition doesn't view things as pragmatically then that doesn't work out all to well.

[Bigmack]

10. LBJ nearly got me killed....

... but the guy knew how to play hardball with the big kids.

All I can think of when I see Obama wimping around with the Repubs is that LBJ would have had them on their knees begging for mercy.

"Grab 'em by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow."

[upaloopa]

14. Yea he drafted me for one of his 30,000 troop increases

If it hadn't been for the war he may have been one of the greatest liberal Presidents in our history.
"I'd rather have them in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in" LBJ

[Tarheel_Dem]

18. JFK & LBJ was a completely different time. It was a time when trinkets & earmarks were passed out..

like candy. Votes were routinely exchanged for big projects that would bring big money to a district, or to a state. Today, with the internet and 24/7 "news" media & CREW, those things don't go over well. And merely being "forceful" doesn't change the makeup of Congress. Hell, not even public opinion has an impact on this Congress, so I'm not sure why you think Obama being "forceful" will. When 90% of the American people are calling for a simple background check for gun owners, and it doesn't get through? There's something seriously wrong when they no longer fear the voting public, why the hell do you think they would fear Obama if were more "forceful"?

Like many in the media, I think you've gotten caught up in a romanticism of some "macho" era gone by. Pres. Obama is a modern man, who doesn't measure other men by the size of their cajones. We knew he was a consensus builder, and a compromiser from his days as a community organizer, it was what attracted so many of us, and now people are calling on him to change the very essence of who he is, and I hope he never does that. You seem more concerned with style over substance, and that's a sad commentary on us all.

[upaloopa]

23. I want our guy to be tougher than their guy

I don't apologize for that. What ever Obama is or isn't these 8 years will not produce the change we thought was coming on election night 2008.
Your words are the epitome of an Obama apologist and that's coming from a founding member of OFA.
On edit: I got invites to both inaugurations and a Christmas card from the Obamas so yes I like Obama.
On further edit: Obama told us to make him do what we want I'm doing that

[Tarheel_Dem]

26. I want Obama to be Obama! You can't change him, anymore than I can change you. Remember that.

[upaloopa]

27. Like I said he told us to make him do the things we want

That's part of the reason OFA exists. He has to hear from us. It's OK if we don't like everything he does.

[Tarheel_Dem]

29. Okay, let's draft a petition telling Obama to be more "angry"? You're dwelling on style, and you...

never want to become what you claim to despise. The exchange you had with another poster, kinda tipped over into some macho man bullcrap about LBJ's cajones. Sexist much?

[upaloopa]

32. I don't know what that has to do with anything.

I didn't say anything other than Obama is no LBJ. I am not responsible for what other posters say.
That sexist meme is in your head and you look out and use it as a slam to me. It doesn't really have any effect on me but to consider the source of the comment.
On edit: what you posted to me is a bullying tactic.

[ProSense]

8. Frankly,

"Centralism is nice for winning general elections, but it is a total train wreck when it comes to governing and enacting real change."

...I think he's going to be a one-term President: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022223211

Remember the debt ceiling and the sequestration?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022836205

Far too many people are becoming giddy over the Republicans' Scandalathon.

[Harmony Blue]

11. I would be happy if job creation was discussed

but when you take the path of centrism and their is blow back for your choices you can't turn around and complain for making those choices. You have live with the choices you make, accept it, and move forward. Will the Obama administration do that? We will find out I suppose?

[ProSense]

13. Let's face it,

"would be happy if job creation was discussed"

...Republicans moved to the scandalathon strategy deliberately, and they knew there were a lot of people waiting for the opportunity to make absurd claims like the one in the OP.

Obama pushes $9 minimum wage bill in visit to red state Texas
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022822520

Too much positive economic news, Boehner cries, "Benghazi"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022820110

[Harmony Blue]

15. Just because the Obama administration secured a 2nd term

doesn't mean the Republicans are going to roll over and give up. They will not become enlightened beings all of sudden and see the error in their ways. For a party that lost big in a recent election they are showing more fighting spirit. The Obama administration meanwhile has decided to prematurely go on cruise control. You can't coast the rest of this term when you have Republicans still fighting you tooth and nail.

[ProSense]

16. Right

"Just because the Obama administration secured a 2nd term doesn't mean the Republicans are going to roll over and give up."

...but do you think that having to resort to screaming about fake scandals is good for Republicans? I mean, I'm seeing utter desperation.

Republican House: Boehner basically admits that the "inmates have taken over the asylum"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022822084

Howard Dean: Republicans "doing everything they can to make sure Congress goes Democratic in 2014"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022790812

[Tarheel_Dem]

17. Ya know, when I read your words, and see your avatar, I see a huge disconnect. Emilyg, that you?

"Centralism"? Really?

[Ikonoklast]

19. My Irony Meter just got pegged, now it's smoking.

As if Hillary isn't a DLC water-carrier, an actual Third Way bootlick.

[Tarheel_Dem]

20. Is it a coincidence?

And what the hell is "centralism"?

[Ikonoklast]

21. A small city in Illinois?

No, my bad, that's "Centralia".

Must be where the Clintonista factory is located, chunking out former Republicans to turn into Democrats after they age them a bit.

[Tarheel_Dem]

24. !!!

[Skidmore]

25. Jeez Louise.

[CakeGrrl]

28. Huh?

"Honest, transparent dialogue with its core base"

about what? All the so-called squeaky wheels of the 'core base' seem to want is groveling and apologies for not "loving them" they way they think the administration "loves" Republicans...the usual refusal to acknowledge the effects of having to deal with the ugly reality of obstructionist, extremist GOP and its wings.

I think some of the 'core base' is enjoying anything they can glom onto as "humbling" - they don't give a whit about an 'honest dialogue' IMO. To wit, this post.

[Tarheel_Dem]

30. +1. And then you have to assume they are truly "the base", which on DU, I never do.

[ljm2002]

31. Or to put it another way...

...you can't sit on two stools.

Obama has been trying to do that since the beginning, and he has continued trying to appease the Republicans in so many ways. All that has happened, is that they have upped their attacks.

The IRS thing is a tempest in a teaparty. It just ain't all that bad. When it comes to political targeting, EVEN IF it was that, it is such small potatoes as to be laughable. Yet the Republicans and their bought media are trying to make it into a major scandal.

The AP thing, I don't know yet. It does sound like they overstepped some bounds there. But then again, when it comes to our civil liberties, this administration as well as the previous one have been doing that for some time. IOW, not much new there, even if there is some wrongdoing on the part of the administration.

The Benghazi thing, we all know that is a bunch of trumped-up malarkey by the Republicans so they can smear Obama and his administration, and as a bonus, they can smear Hillary Clinton early and often, hoping to weaken her for 2016 should she decide to run. (Hearing Rand Paul claim she is "unfit for higher office" made me laugh insanely, considering the source).

[Zen Democrat]

33. Humbled by accusation? I don't see where Obama has a problem with any of this.

[Cha]

34. No, they're not. republicons are being ASSHOLES and those buying into

it with Glee are getting shot down right along with the coporatemediaWhores.

The Obama Admin stands strong and no amount of whining on the internet is going to change that.

[winter is coming]

35. You believe centrism is harmful, yet your avatar is Hillary?