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That's not to say that he won't catch lots of flak from conservatives, too. But it looks like Obama is more of a pragmatist than an idealogue. He's more interested in making progress towards achieving goals than in pacifying certain demographics. And he's sharp enough to know that catering to one extreme or the other leaves the massive middle dissatisfied.
I predict he'll get quite a bit accomplished over the hoots and catcalls of the extremists at both ends of the spectrum.
That's not to say that he won't catch lots of flak from conservatives, too. But it looks like Obama is more of a pragmatist than an idealogue. He's more interested in making progress towards achieving goals than in pacifying certain demographics. And he's sharp enough to know that catering to one extreme or the other leaves the massive middle dissatisfied.
I predict he'll get quite a bit accomplished over the hoots and catcalls of the extremists at both ends of the spectrum.
You must have missed the part where he incorrectly blamed 'white' suburban taxpayers for refusing to fund inner-city schools, when it's actually the wealthy city taxpayers who are undertaxed.
Obama claimed...
"I think that whether you are a white executive living out in the suburbs, who doesn’t want to pay taxes to inner-city children for them to go to school..."
...in an interview after the release of his book, Dreams from My Father.
In the context of the interview in which he discussed school funding, Obama is claiming that 'white' suburban executives don't want to pay taxes to inner-city schools. This shows Obama's deliberate racism and a startling lack of understanding of how school funding works in Illinois.
Illinois public schools are funded mostly by their respective districts' real estate taxes. The rest is funded by state taxpayers on a need-based sliding scale. The result of that is that those 'white' executives fund their own school districts at a level of about 95%, and also provide about 30% of the Chicago Public School District's budget. So, those 'white' suburban executives are paying for their own schools and Chicago's schools.
Furthermore, if Chicago's schools need more funding (they don't - they already spend more than $11,000 per student per year), they should be raising property taxes on Chicago properties; there's a lot of pricey properties in Chicago - for example, Obama's $1.2 million home on which he paid $14,559 in real estate tax in 2006. 5040 S Greenwood Ave, Chicago, IL 60615 | Zillow Real Estate
If anything, it's OBAMA who is unwilling to pay for inner-city schools. Why isn't Obama asked why he and other wealthy Chicagoans don't pay their fair share to support inner-city schools?
As far as that interview - Obama could have left this as a dispute between city and suburban taxpayers and leave it at that (though as explained above, he still would have been inaccurate in his conclusion), but instead - he deliberately chose to blame 'whites' in what he incorrectly asserted was school funding inequity.
Obama's scapegoating 'white' suburban taxpayers in this way, without understanding what's really going on with school funding, shows a decidedly anti-white bias on his part - verymuch like the anti-white rantings of Rev. Wright and the Black Liberation Theology church Obama belonged to for 20 years, got married in, andwhere he had his kids baptized.
Obama has mellowed his 'pitch' to be more palatable to the masses to get elected, but he has a strong decades-long background of antipathy and racism towards, as he puts it in his own words - 'whites.' In this interview in which he discusses the inner-city school funding issue, Obama is racist and wrong. But hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a purposely divisive message that Obama was betting on a lot of people believing.
It's not surprising - Obama has always been racist and extremely partisan - even when the actual facts flew in the face of what he was saying.
It's not surprising - Obama has always been racist and extremely partisan - even when the actual facts flew in the face of what he was saying.
Sounds like many a C-D poster.
In this instance, you assume no growth is possible on the part of people.
*******
In response to the OP, I'd have to say that it depends on the approach of the liberal.
If one walks in with one's goals to have somebody fighting to bring liberal fantasies to life, then yes, I expect you would be right.
This liberal's goals are to have somebody fighting to heal and make progress toward a better America and a better world. Sure, giant steps like the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights act or Women's Vote are wonderful.
But, to my mind, some firm 'small' steps would be very appreciated. It fulfills a major liberal value, as I understand liberalism, to bring people together and to cut down on conflict. So... if he manages a moderate presidency, but one in which there is more harmony when he leaves than when he entered, then the degree to which that is true will be the measure of my satisfaction with his term or terms in office.
In this instance, you assume no growth is possible on the part of people.
I'd be happy to see growth from Obama. All he has to do is renounce what he said and explain how he now recognizes he was wrong on this issue - and apologize for incorrectly blaming, in his own words, 'whites.'
That's not to say that he won't catch lots of flak from conservatives, too. But it looks like Obama is more of a pragmatist than an idealogue. He's more interested in making progress towards achieving goals than in pacifying certain demographics. And he's sharp enough to know that catering to one extreme or the other leaves the massive middle dissatisfied.
I predict he'll get quite a bit accomplished over the hoots and catcalls of the extremists at both ends of the spectrum.
I think you're assuming that all liberals (and all conservatives) are idealogues, and I don't think that's true.
Yes, those far out to the left and right are often blinded by their partisan beliefs and therefore not nearly as open to a more practical and pragmatic approach. But the vast majority of liberals - just like the vast majority of conservatives - are not way out there at the end of the political spectrum.
I don't expect to be happy with everything he does (for example, I didn't agree with his FISA vote). But since I was happy with very little that Bush did, I suspect that overall I will be delighted with the vast majority of Obama's accomplishments. And certainly, I am all in favor of a pragmatic approach.
Of course liberals will be disappointed in Obama. We already are over the FISA deal. Obama is exactly what you said: a pragmatist. He's also a centrist. So he's bound to p*** us off many times. But I'm speaking generally, and I take jps-teacher's point, too. For the most part, we'll be reasonable as long as Obama is moving us back from the brink to which conservative policies have brought us.
And the wingnuts here will go on with their insane insistence that he's a liberal and a socialist (and the related lie that America is a "center-right" country).
That's not to say that he won't catch lots of flak from conservatives, too. But it looks like Obama is more of a pragmatist than an idealogue. He's more interested in making progress towards achieving goals than in pacifying certain demographics. And he's sharp enough to know that catering to one extreme or the other leaves the massive middle dissatisfied.
I predict he'll get quite a bit accomplished over the hoots and catcalls of the extremists at both ends of the spectrum.
But it looks like Obama is more of a pragmatist than an idealogue. He's more interested in making progress towards achieving goals than in pacifying certain demographics.
And he's sharp enough to know that catering to one extreme or the other leaves the massive middle dissatisfied.
Let's hope so. I wouldn't put too much stock in anything he wrote in a book or has said, and would tend to dismiss it as drivel.
We can all write high-sounding drivel on a sheet of paper or key it into a computer, but governing and management are another matter.
Does he himself know how operate an excel spreadsheet and crunch the numbers?
Regardless, I think the biggest disappointment for most people will be the realization that he represents corporate interests just as much as all other politicians, with a little leeway here and there.
The initial focus on bailing out the automakers, without any hint of a more comprehensive energy and infrastructure plan, is not an auspicious start, but let's give him a chance, at least until the new Congress writes its first budget and he signs it.
At that point we can put the numbers in a spreadsheet and have a real measure of who he and the new (or old) people in government really are, without rhetoric, without high-sounding drivel.
I predict he'll get quite a bit accomplished over the hoots and catcalls of the extremists at both ends of the spectrum.
I quite agree. I never claimed to agree with everything Obama promised (much I'm sure cannot be delivered, just as much of what McCain promised cannot be delivered), I just simply felt he was a better candidate than McCain. When Obama does something that upsets me, I'll certainly complain about it, but I do believe that he will be an improvement over the last eight years, and the Obama/Biden ticket, with all of its faults, appealed to me much more than the McCain/Palin ticket. So there it is.
Of course liberals will be disappointed in Obama. We already are over the FISA deal. Obama is exactly what you said: a pragmatist. He's also a centrist. So he's bound to p*** us off many times. But I'm speaking generally, and I take jps-teacher's point, too. For the most part, we'll be reasonable as long as Obama is moving us back from the brink to which conservative policies have brought us.
Thank you.
I'd like to make one very clear distinction:
The last 8 years are not "conservative" policies.
As a general rule, neither the way this Administration and these 4 Congresses have spent money nor the way they have failed to shepherd resources - natural, human, or fiscal - fit any of the guidelines of the conservative movement.
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