Poll: Is It Possible To Admire Barack Obama, His Wife And Kids... And Disagree With His Policies ???

[WillyT]

I have no animus to the person...

The direction of his policy,..

Yeah... I have a problem...

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	8 (100%)
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[Autumn]

1. He's likable enough, his wife is attractive and his kids are cute.

The direction of his policy,..

Yeah... I have problems with that too...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. That's where I am, my dear WillyT........So yes, it's possible, and even likely.

I wish that his policies were better ones, so I wouldn't have this split inside my head.

[NYC_SKP]

3. You put the "n" in nice.

And the i and the c and the e, too!

:hug

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Aw, thank you, my dear NYC_SKP...

You are too sweet...

[babylonsister]

4. Hahaha! nt

[HooptieWagon]

6. Yes.

I have never met him, but if I did I suspect I'd like him very much. And I have a great respect for him. I have a few republican friends... I like and respect them, too. But like Obama, I disagree with many of their political positions.

[Gravitycollapse]

7. I try not to lionize political leaders.

I don't care about his family life as long as he's the President of the United States.

[OnyxCollie]

8. Explain how Obama's wife and kids affect his policies.

We assume that statesmen think and act in terms of interest defined as
power, and the evidence of history bears that assumption out. That assumption
allows us to retrace and anticipate, as it were, the steps a statesman-
past, present, or future-has taken or will take on the political scene.
We look over his shoulder when he writes his dispatches; we listen in on
his conversation with other statesmen; we read and anticipate his very
thoughts. Thinking in terms of interest defined as power, we think as he
does, and as disinterested observers we understand his thoughts and actions
perhaps better than he, the actor on the political scene, does himself.

The concept of interest defined as power imposes intellectual discipline
upon the observer, infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics,
and thus makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible. On the
side of the actor, it provides for rational discipline in action and creates that
astounding continuity in foreign policy which makes American, British, or
Russian foreign policy appear as an intelligible, rational continuum, by and
large consistent within itself, regardless of the different motives, preferences,
and intellectual and moral qualities of successive statesmen. A realist theory
of international politics, then, will guard against two popular fallacies:
the concern with motives and the concern with ideological preferences.

~snip~

Yet even if we had access to the real motives of statesmen, that knowledge
would help us little in understanding foreign policies, and might well
lead us astray. It is true that the knowledge of the statesman's motives may
give us one among many clues as to what the direction of his foreign policy
might be. It cannot give us, however, the one clue by which to predict his
foreign policies. History shows no exact and necessary correlation between
the quallty of motives and the quality of foreign policy. This is true in both
moral and political terms.

We cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his
foreign policies will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful.
Judging his motives, we can say that he will not intentionally pursue
policies that are morally wrong, but we can say nothing about the probability
of their success. If we want to know the moral and political qualities
of his actions, we must know them, not his motives. How often have
statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended
by making it worse? And how often have they sought one goal, and ended
by achieving something they neither expected nor desired?

Morgenthau, H. (1948). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace. New York: Knopf

[Prophet 451]

9. Sure

He's a nice enough guy, good sense of humour, eloquent. Michelle, I've seen less of, but she seems like a nice lady and his kids are pretty cute.

I'm somewhat torn on his policies. Some I agree with, some I don't.

[blkmusclmachine]

10. The White House's policies are terrible for the Party. And the Country. Not so much for the GOP. Fre

quently.

[Scuba]

15. +1

[rufus dog]

11. Yes

And I think you mean this from a Liberal point of view. The bigger picture is from a middle of the road or sane conservative perspective.

The establishment has tried to demonize the Obama's, just like they did to the Clinton's. They have a problem though, the Obama's are much more likable.

You would be hard pressed to find something the Obama's have done to even try to stir up anger on a personal level. No Monica, no other sexual escapades. The only thing the righties have is made up hate and racism. Which makes them look even more pathetic when trying to promote their brand of politics.

The Clinton's had enough flaws for the uninformed to grab on to the propaganda, the Obama's force all non racists to question the b.s. being fed to them.

[Ichingcarpenter]

12. Tony Blair was convincing and likeable

and the greatest secret weapon Margaret Thatcher ever had and he was a so called Labour leader.

He helped sell the Iraq war to the US and to some world allies.

[Exposethefrauds]

13. I guess but I know in my case I do not care at all about the family of the POTUS and what they do or

not do, they did not run for office nor do they write or implement policy.

What is really interesting about PBO is that the 1% were able to find a way to get what they wanted by putting a non white in the oval office who will implement the agenda of the 1% and use the office of the POTUS to protect the 1%.

If people want to admire him family that is fine, but politics and those we vote for should not be a cult of personality either.

[TexasProgresive]

14. Is It Possible To Admire Barack Obama, His Wife And Kids... And Disagree With His Policies ???

I should hope so. The only person one might agree with completely would be oneself. And that is not a given. So do I agree with 100% of the president's policies? No, but not all. Now would I agree or disagree more with the policies of a president Romney or McCain? I guess I would disagree with their possible policies close to 100% as I did with Reagan-Bush-Bush.

I try to take the families on their own merits and don't hold them to any real standard. They didn't ask for it.

[treestar]

16. I suppose that is true with anybody

I can dislike the actions of anybody without "hating" them. We call can.

Though you can tell when it starts to spill over into hating the person. I think people may start to dislike someone they disagree with consistently.

I don't think Obama's policies are a problem to a lot of people. They think it is. But what they really don't like is the system entirely. They want this big revolution and big change. Like the idiots supposedly marching on DC today. They take it out on Obama because they think the Presidency should be used to change the system. That is pretty unrealistic.

[kelliekat44]

17. Which policies? The ones enacted? The ones obstructed? All? Some? nt

[DerekG]

18. I have an admiration for Churchill

He was an imperialist and malignant racist, but was undoubtedly one of the more multilayered leaders in modern history.

[spanone]

19. what do his wife and kids have to do with his policies?

[AverageJoe90]

20. Not that hard if you're a Democrat.....so yes.

But we Democrats do tend to be more respectful of those who we disagree with, at least in terms of people within our own party. Repubs? Not so much.....