So I've heard a few times now that "Obama has been in office for 3 years" --

[eppur_se_muova]

R's were blaming everything on Clinton up to the very end of Bu**sh**'s second term. It seems no length of time was great enough for responsibility to come home to roost "on Bu**sh**'s watch".

Obama gets the blame for the first TARP payments, which were made in the last years of Bu**sh**'s maladministration. R's have gotten the compliant media to forget that detail completely.

Obama hadn't been in office for two months -- with a huge, Republican-caused mess to clean up -- before R's started complaining that he hadn't fixed the economy yet.

Now that he's been in office for two years and five months (Oh, alright -- almost five months, lacking only about ten days) RW pundits are tossing out the phrase "three years in office" as if no one else knows how to use a calendar. Of course, if reporters and moderators don't call them out and say "For the record, Obama won't have been in office three years until January 19th, more than seven months from now", it will cause just as much damage as if it were actually true, since most people don't watch TV with the expectation that they have to think about what they're hearing. That's not what TV is for. And our corporate-owned, GOP-fellating media won't make them.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[FrenchieCat]

2. We have a real President NOW.....not a dictator....

Even if you don't want to acknowledge it.

As for the Buck......if the Corporations and Republicans hold our economy hostage,
why should Obama get the blame? He ain't no fucking dictator....except for in the
small minds of the unreasonable who talk a good game but ain't really got a doable
solution considering the political circumstances.

[notesdev]

4. Is that so?

Funny, he seems to be able to dictate us into new wars without a problem.

[JoePhilly]

7. Hey, look over there .... a MOOSE.

All hail captain Non Sequitur.

The captain might want to study up on which powers the President actually has.

[notesdev]

11. I'm quite aware of them

Perhaps you need to study up on them.

The power to declare war rests with CONGRESS, not the President. This shit in Libya and Yemen = totally unconstitutional warmongering.

The President's powers are to faithfully execute the laws. Yet bankers who blatantly and maliciously committed serial fraud over a period of many years and continue to do so today, breaking innumerable laws in the process, remain unprosecuted, even though this is the main function of the job of President - to faithfully execute the law. He even swore an oath to do just that.

So... keep digging, if you wish. But that's quicksand you're making your stand in.

[namahage]

12. Funny. Just a little while ago you mentioned

that a "REAL President" (guessing you mean Truman) had a sign saying "The buck stops here."

Yet a little while later you decry sending troops into conflict without a formal declaration of war by Congress.

Remind me again which President sent troops into Korea? Did he get his Congressional declaration of war?

So which is it? Should Obama be more like Truman, or less like Truman?

[JoePhilly]

17. Looks like you posted this in the wrong place ...

You might want to go back and figure out who said what you now claim that I said.

Here is a hint ... is was not me, who said the things you quote above.

And so to be clear, that stuff you attribute to me above ... it is NONSENSE.

[namahage]

20. Um, I wasn't responding to you.

I was responding to the poster that said both that Truman was a "real President" and that Obama was wrong for involving troops in a UN action without Congressional say-so...which, amazingly, sounds quite a bit like what Truman did re: Korea.

[JoePhilly]

21. I have to say sorry, "my fault" ...

I read your post a couple times ... and I looked back to see the thread and follow it ... and I went back and forth.

I really could not understand why your post called me out on that specific point.

And when I look now, I can see you are responding to some one else.

Maybe I need a nap.

Again, very sorry.

[namahage]

24. Eh, it happens. No worries. n/t

[JoePhilly]

16. Hey look, another MOOSE!!!

This time the banks. Oh brother ...

You make some accusations there ... so tell us which SPECIFIC laws did the bankers "blatantly and maliciously" break? Its your claim, I'm sure you have some actual legal precedent to back that up. So where is it?

Oh, and the President has had the authority to direct our Military in many ways for a very long time. And Congress does not have to declare war in each and every instance. There are decades of precedent on this point. And there is a reason that he is the CIC. You may not like it, but its part of holding the office.

I'm sure that will make you scream, but the reality is that the use of our military is a shared power. The President does not have to sit oon his hands waiting for Congress to approve every military action. And thank God for that.

But you digress.

The OP was about the economy and what Obama can do about that. You want it to be about what powers he has relative to the military.

The powers of the President are DIFFERENT when it comes to the economy versus the use of the military. Don't you know that?

[Horse with no Name]

3. Well...this is what I think

I think the historical mess that Obama was left with deserved some historical measures to clean it up.

There was a mandate. There was political capital.

If ever in history there was a time to force an agenda, that was the time.

The majority of Americans UNDERSTOOD and WANTED huge changes...so, if stepping on a few republican toes happened, it would have been okay. Simple majorities could have been forced through with rule changes.

However, from Day 1...the silly attempts at "centrism" and "bipartisanship" got in the way.

Obama should have embraced an aggressive progressive agenda and shot it through...damned the immediate consequences...it could have been done.

At the end of the day, he was going to be blamed for whatever anyway...so why not shoot for the moon?

They weren't willing to compromise on anything--but we compromised anyway--without the votes. So, we got their milquetoast ridiculous ideas shoved down our throat without them having to take ANY responsibility.

We lost a very important opportunity. I guess the history books will decide if it was on purpose or not.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. I agree completely. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

8. I'm afraid I agree. Even the stimulus wasn't big enough to do the job.

So Obama gets blamed for a half-measure that worked, but wasn't an UNDENIABLE success, and that really needed to do more. That's what bipartisanship hath wrought.

[JVS]

15. +1

[aquart]

22. Yup. And he still doesn't get it.

[hfojvt]

5. kinda funny, two years and five months

and it is already election season.

Not to mention the bad economy - 3 million jobs lost in 2008 and another 3 million lost in Obama's first five months in office. But he gets blamed because they have not all come back.

[Scuba]

9. The Bush eight felt like 40 to me, so I may cut them some slack....

...no I won't.

[MisterP]

10. quite right: we should be focusing on his RW policy proposals instead

[JoePhilly]

18. Such as?

Killing medicare?
Killing Social Security?
Outlaw abortion?
Laying off all public employees?

Those are a few of the RW proposals that scare me ... and I've yet to see Obama endorse any of them.

[spin]

13. I think the Republicans knew they had no chance of winning the last Presidential race ...

and decided to screw things up so bad that no Democrat could fix the problem in four years. Now they are doing everything that they can to make sure that Obama can't succeed.

[Horse with no Name]

14. That's what I think too

Absolutely. bush screwed up so bad they knew they couldn't get reelected--which is why they didn't put out a serious candidate.

With a compliant media who is willing to carry their talking points far and wide--getting the word out wasn't going to be hard on any topic they wished.

[JoePhilly]

19. +100

[aquart]

23. Well, at least they know they can be successful at something.

They are screwing this country up very well.

[GeorgeGist]

25. As far as I recall I was held responsible,

from day one, in every job I ever held.

[malaise]

26. Well he hasn't been in office for two years and six months yet

but ReTHUGS don't care - everything bad is his fault and in case you don't know - Bushco caught Bin Laden.

[GeorgeGist]

27. Clever using Republican stupidity ...

to distract from Obama's shoddy performance that last 2 years and 5 months. But hey, when you got nothing, there's always hope.

[housewolf]

28. It bothers me too

One more GOP distortion