
Originally Posted by
lawguy85
I love randomly checking in on the politics forum!! I haven't been on IA to make judgments about too many people, but several things are clear. As much as I disagree with 99% of what he types, BagingJimmy is actually very well informed on the issues facing this country, and not a racist. However, Bikerwhatever is a fucking moron who has serious issues that wont be easily treated. From his postings I know AirMax isn't at my law school, but he can argue as well as any barrister (not to be confused with barista) here. My favorite forum burn usually revolves around telling someone to read a book, but that expression is forever ruined by the guy who demonstrated his lack of history by trying to make an argument about the electoral college. Although the Electoral College is the constitutional method for selecting a prez/vice prez, the electoral votes are cast according to the POPULAR VOTE.
Anyway, on topic. Its pretty preposterous to say that a policy will fail because it doesn't comport with your idea as a layman as to how the world works. The most important thing to remember is that a President doesn't set policy, he has a final say as to which policies he will advocate. Short civics lesson, bills originate in Congress, the House and the Senate. The President simply says yay or nay, and is tasked with running agencies that carry out legislation. The practical effect of this is that the President usually tells Congressional leaders what he's willing to sign off on, and it its up to those legislators to draft a bill they think they have a shot at pushing through. Its imperative to keep in mind that each Congressman has a staff of advisors who do the legwork and give the Congressman the actual legislation. On the Presidents end he has even more advisors, and for each of his advisors there are even more advisors. What you get in the end is a general idea that was thought of by President Obama and shaped by basically everyone but him. The reason President Bush was even a moderate success is that he had an excellent cabinet around him, and Karl Rove at his side. The reason President Obama is making me nervous (and I'm a black guy so STFU all of you bitches who think all black blindly follow him) is that his staff did a absolute shit job vetting their appointments. Again, this isn't directly Obama's fault because he didn't personally vet Geigner or Richardson, but it is indirectly his fault because he should have made sure that the people who were vetting his appointments were extremely thorough.
Lastly, a perfect example of not judging a policy based on initial reactions is Iraq. That thing has gone through so many phases that the jury is still out on how sucessful it was. Sure Mike is probably gonna argue that it was a success due to the surge and the fact that deaths are down. However, AirMax could just as easily counter that it was a failure because Bush sent our men and women into harms way without any exit strategy once Sadaam's regime was toppled. Ultimately no one knows how the stimulus package will work because it isn't the year 2040 and it hasn't run its course yet. The logical thing for anyone to do would be sit back and hope the people charged with running the country, not just President Obama, have some fucking clue as to what they are doing. I know that's pretty hard to do when Boortz, Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin are yelling at the top of their lungs from 8am-10pm every day. I get my news from Drudge and I'm not freaking the hell out, so others should take note!
Mot importantly, keep the debate flowing!!!