Time to cut the crap. Obama Derangement Syndrome doesn't really exist.

[TreasonousBastard]

56. Oh yeah?

If it's a policy disagreement you have, then you have to be specific about the policy's failings and about a realistic solution.

"Obama fucked this one up" does neither.

The circumstances around the policies under fire are usually too complex for a chessboard and a Go master would have an interesting time maneuvering through them.

Case in point would be the chained cpi where Obama has been regularly trashed whenever it comes up. And it often seems to come just because there's nothing else around to bash him with. According to the hair-on-fire crowd we're all going to die if this goes through, but I've done the calculations, and we're not all going to die. I might get a $7 increase instead of a $10 one, and that's about as bad as it gets. But, none of us knows fully what kind of sausage was made when that deal was struck and maybe 600 or so people in DC were involved in the negotiations. We have no idea how bad it could have become when the asshole Scrooge contingent were using cutting the actual payments as a cudgel and threatening to shut down the airports back then.

Now, we just saw how we had to cut food stamps out of the farm bill to get a farm bill. And, in retrospect, a lot of people are saying we needed a farm bill like another hole in the head in a year when farmers showed record returns while poor people had even less to eat but they get their food stamps cut. So, considering all the power bases with input, just how would the hypothetical "You" handle this for the ideal outcome? Next best outcome? Barely tolerable but at least passable outcome? Just put out the damned fire outcome?

Just what is the decision making process when the Syrians are gassing people, Kenyan shopping centers are being terrorized, 30 or 40 Republicans are saying "So fire me-- I don't give a shit because my voters are fucking idiots and I don't like this job anyway", a couple of thousand Americans are being randomly shot every year, the Post Office is being put out of business, cable TV and the internet have given us more talking heads than brains to go in them... I could go on, but you all know the rest.

So, without the classified knowledge in the White House, without the experience and contacts of the regular DC press corps, and often without the other half of our brains, we sit here and pontificate on earthshaking events when we barely hold on to our own jobs in the 7-11.

Yeah, I do it too, but I try to not act like a wounded bear when it's pointed out. I have mirrors in my home.