On Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:29:01 GMT, "Tom Littleton" wrote:


wrote in message
.. .
Will those things lacking matter in some dramatic
fashion? Impossible to say as it can only be commented upon after the
fact.


overall, I see a very human leadership, warts and all, that seems to be
doing an extremely competent, workmanlike job of plowing through a host of
problems(most brought on by gross incompetence of others, dating back
years).
Like I said, something is happening here, and it goes far beyond the
Administration, to the renewed focus of a larger part of the electorate on
the common good. A changed notion, if you will, of the role of the public in
government, and role of government in the functioning of society. Probably,
this is merely a pendulum-swing type of reaction to the Conservative swing
of the past several decades. But, focusing on minor issues with the
President's administration, while overlooking the ability to put some
competent folks into key roles, and value intelligent input, seems to be an
odd choice.Given the potential of Obama to tap into, for good purposes, that
new spirit and focus of the electorate, IMO, you could ponder more important
matters, without losing much sleep over the competence of the Obama team. As
they say, though, YMMV.
Tom


Here's how I see it - I think most agreed that Obama could not possibly live up
to the ridiculous, unrealistic "hype" during the election cycle and immediately
afterward. So the fact that he didn't means little. Likewise, a fair portion
of the nonsense, ala "Beancounter" and his not being a US citizen, his being
some secret Muslim "terrorist," etc., was and is preposterous and ridiculous.

He did and does have fantastic potential, both personally and to tap into "the
public potential." But when he does things like nominate and champion Hillary
Clinton, Tim Geithner, and worse, Daschle, he demonstrates a lack of both common
sense and political savvy, not to mention "smarts." And then, he does plain ol'
amateurish **** like bowing to Abdullah, _with footage of it_, and then,
allowing/having his people make up **** about shaking hands with Shorty, or
having Jarrett hire Kumar as PL to Asian-Americans and the Arts and having his
people defend it by citing Kalpen's "International Security" college work, which
consisted of a coupla-few online classes, and now, as Ken posted, this dog
stuff. And then, the "surrogates" defend all of this amateur-hour shtick by,
yet again, going to the "OH, YEAH?! Well, BUSH BUSH BUSH CHENEY CHENEY
CHENEY!!!!" defense. Of course, none of the small stuff matters _as isolated
incidents_, but when viewed as a total, it's not promising. Look, if was and
ran as some "plain ol' guy" with good ideas, it would mitigate this stuff, but
he didn't - he ran as the super-sharp man with the plan.

Combine all this with the more serious "violations of trust" in all but ignoring
key campaign _promises_ (and thus placing them in the realm of typical "business
as usual" campaign "promises") such as "no lobbyists," "out of Iraq in 09,"
etc., etc. (which themselves were amateurish campaign promises that even his
one-time Dem rivals called as such), and I believe the criticism is warranted.
Can he pull up and out of it? Sure, and I hope he does. But he better pull
back on the stick pretty quickly or he's gonna hit a pretty big hill...

HTH,
R