No matter where I look, it's always Obama, Obama, Obama. Democrats love him, Republicans hate him, but no middle ground seems to exist. I mean, it's not even past the first year of his presidency and already people are forming these opinions that cannot and will not be disputed no matter the amount of sensible arguing, but what has Obama done so far? Sure, I'm sure you ALL followed his entire campaign trail, and made an educated prediction on who would be the better president; thus, voting accordingly. And now that he's become president, you will view his decisions and major bills objectively, and decide to criticize or commend him accordingly... right? You're not going to automatically accept him because the first president, or hate him automatically because he's going to take your guns away.

Being someone who's neutral on Obama for the moment because of the simple fact that he hasn't had a chance to do many things yet, I'd like to know why you all feel so strongly about him.

I am largely with you...

So how am I supposed to respond?

I don't feel too strongly about Obama either. I kinda like him (EVEN THOUGH I'M A REPUBLICAN@@@), but I don't really have much reason to yet. Then again, anyone brave enough to take on the office of the President deserves peoples' respect by default until he/she loses it, so I don't suppose that's particularly illogical.

He's done a fair amount, but the effects of what he's done won't be clear for quite some time, so yeah, it's a little silly to judge him so far.

I like Obama and I'm hoping that he succeeds, but I'm not treating him like a messiah. Not enough people can justify hating him, and not enough can justify loving him.

@OP: There's plenty of people who are moderate on Obama. But, because they are neutral, they have no reason to yell about their opinion.

Shoot and bang.

For the same reason that people who don't care about a subject don't discuss it.

I'm very liberal and I liked him and still do. His politics are way too centrist for me. He's slightly to the left of Bill Clinton and Clinton was a very moderate Dem (moderate on social issues and fiscally conservative). The progressive community (Obama's base) is not very pleased with him. A lot of them think, me included, that he needs to get more done. And he'll get more done if he drops the bipartisanship crap and just pass some Democratically written bills. Yeah, it's dangerous because the Dems will totally own them, but if they work...the Dems will totally own them. For two straight elections the American people overwhelmingly voted Dems into office, now they should pass some of their legislation.

I think it will be the GOP of '96, all over again, tbh.

Personally, I believe the centrist politics are the best politics. I've always hated the idea of liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican (everybody knows every one else doesn't matter at this point); the things that are best for the country will come from a combination of both sides, not just whoever's in power, thus comes my opinion on Democratically/Republican bills- they're a bunch of bull. The majority of them, especially ones based on economic plans, are either too liberal or too conservative to work; so when one of these bills is written and passed, they either have a huge deficit in the beginning, or a huge deficit in the end, everybody gets fed up with whoever passed the bills in the first place, so parties switch majority and the cycle repeats itself, driving us deeper in debt. Sure, Obama needs to get more done because there's always ways to improve the country, no matter which way you look at it. What this country needs sorely is a bipartisan president who knows how to unite his Congress, and get the educations of people, regardless of their political party, not a president who will stay true to his party.

Which immediately eliminates the GOP and Democrats.

And your proposal for that? People need to be wealthy to even run in the election or known on some other circuit. Almost everyone in that large grouping falls under the Republican or Democrat tag.

No I don't like Obama because he resigned the patriot act, which I'm much against, so I lost most of my respect for him there.

I have different political belief's to him, such as less government spending, less taxes etc, however I can see why he would do particular things, I just think he doesn't have the money to pay for these bills. It's the same in the UK, we are piling too much money into our growing debt without thinking about the consequences. Some think-tanks suggests higher taxes, which will limit growth, which it already does, or retirement being shortened. The current debt is 90% of the GDP in the USA, and the younger generation is going to have to pay for our mistakes. As you can see bellow how England has done a heck lot worse than the USA seeing our economy is nearly 10 times smaller:



And I don't see Obama supporting the auditing of the fed, one of the most important bills I think is currently around. I also don't like his spending on climate, and how he doesn't accept other theories behind climate change, but no, more of the younger generations money going down the drain. I do accept that money does need to go to this, but some research into the other belief's before they spend another half a trillion needs to be done.

The one thing I don't like with the current economic expression is the amount of government spending, and in the end it's going to strangle the small businesses with increased taxes and regulations that are the life blood of rich countries. The economy may look like it's getting better, but the increased confidence in the market is bad, the economy is too shaky at the moment and it worries me seeing so many people invest heavily in the stock market. Call me strange but I have read the buisness section in the paper for the last year, and I've seen numerous articles warming us that a fast recovery will put us in another recession. What needs to be done is a change in laws, regulation, less taxes, less spending. People are saying that US is recovering greatly, but the money being printed out of the fed is murdering the dollar atm, and it's looking increasingly unattractive for other countries as the reserve currency, especially to China.

Depends. Actually, I think that an alternation of one and the other politic is optimal.



Epic credits to Demon Jelly's blog obviously.

Which, though, helps export.

I'm Japanese and this doesn't affect me in anyway whatsoever.

Anyways i still miss Bill tbh he was boss.

Tbh, I don't strongly dislike Obama. As of now, he hasn't done anything (as far as I'm aware) that has changed things radically for the worse. I haven't been keeping up with the news totally, however, so I could be wrong.




That is a good thing. He is not doing a lot of stuff that is completely radical. It seems sort of retarded to me that the stuff that doesn't really matter, such as his speech to the school kids about working hard and so on, is being picked out and railed against by certain Republicans. I still don't get that. Plus, Joe Wilson standing up and yelling, "You liar!" in the middle of Obama's talk.

So far his policies have been very moderate compared to the radical steps what detractors have been threatening he will do. I am pleased with the way the global economy is going and his head start on tackling foreign affairs issues instead of trying to cram it in for later.

On the other hand, I too feel he could go a step further in certain issues such as the allegations of torture in Guantanamo and putting more pressure on Israel with regards to human rights and the Palestinian issue.

What I really dislike about Obama is that he's continuing fifty years of failed Middle Eastern policy: coercing democracy on Middle Eastern nations.

I've got mixed feelings about Obama.

I am a "left-of-Gandhi" style Liberal -- which means to say that, in the case of any kind of liberal policy, as far as I am concerned, they never go far enough "left" to make the actual improvements to social welfare and related programs that I think are necessary within society.

Take health-care reform in the U.S. for example - Obama is in the fight of his life over a vastly and ridiculously watered-down "universal scheme" which is, well, not even purporting universal health care. It's a half-"fast" approach to fixing a huge domestic issue in the U.S. -- and he's tried very hard to hold the centrist line in the hopes that he can sell this to the American people who, thanks to a well funded insurance lobby, are fighting him tooth and nail over changes to a health system that they simply cannot understand.

Americans don't understand "universal health care" and until they do understand it, they don't deserve it.

I also give his foreign policy incentives a mixed review. I think Demon Jelly may have hit the nail on the head - he's gone to the same old tired Middle East policy of trying to sow "freedom and democracy" in a region where it's just not fertile enough to grow. One of things I have never understood is why the Americans are constantly trying to export "freedom and democracy" into regions where "full bellies and a warm place to sleep" is the bigger priority. When you are scrambling around trying to eek out an existence, day to day, living on what few scraps you can pry from your environment, freedom and democracy is a luxury. When you cannot even put a loaf of bread on the table, being given the right to vote for someone you haven't got time to listen to, and being given a purple finger is not a priority. It just isn't.

That said, I think Obama has gone a long way to improving international relations. I think he has gone a long way to mending the relationships that the Bush administration stomped all over.

I am skeptical that he is going to be able to spend his way out of this economic disaster - and, in the long run, I think this is going to end badly if they continue to throw more money at a bad situation. Not that this is Obama's fault -- it was Reagan who started this trend, and Bush that let it go entirely haywire -- I just don't know if Obama, or anyone else, really knows how to fix it.

Spending our way out of a recession is impossible with the Federal Reserve still existing. The money spent just results in added debt, therefore, reduced economic growth, which sounds paradoxical, but isn't if you review the entire situation.

But yeah, the Middle East policy is really dumb. If there's anything to immediately pick to be changed, that's precisely it. I think it's the most obviously, least controversial change that needs to be made, personally.