Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Andrew Sullivan asks a polemical question in his latest Newsweek article. By the way, he isn't just referring to conservatives.

Agree or disagree with his politics (he is clearly an Obama supporter), he makes valid points. Many of his critics are simply factually wrong in their rabid hatred and criticsm of the President.

[Shimmy]

That's odd.  I was just thinking to myself (before I read this post) "Why are Obamanation supporters so dumb?"

[NCVol]

My problem with Obama critics is they rely on evidence-and-fact-free talking points. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

He's a man with a plan all right.

A plan to continue bailing out Wall St and keeping crony politics/capitalism alive and well.  See Solyndra and the 11 other energy companies that used tax payer dollars to fund failed businesses.

A plan to deliver more people in our nation's history into abject poverty.  See skyrocketing SNAP roles and plunging workforce participation/salaries.

A plan to instigate a "neo-liberal / neo-conservative" war with Iran.  See musical aircraft carriers over at Stratfor's website for the latest saber rattling and cloak/dagger war with Iran.

A plan to deliver us all to a FEMA camp somewhere sometime in the future, see NDAA act recently signed by Il Duce 2.0

Yeah, what's not to like.    /Sarc off/

[NCVol]

He's a man with a plan all right.

A plan to continue bailing out Wall St and keeping crony politics/capitalism alive and well.  See Solyndra and the 11 other energy companies that used tax payer dollars to fund failed businesses.

A plan to deliver more people in our nation's history into abject poverty.  See skyrocketing SNAP roles and plunging workforce participation/salaries.

A plan to instigate a "neo-liberal / neo-conservative" war with Iran.  See musical aircraft carriers over at Stratfor's website for the latest saber rattling and cloak/dagger war with Iran.

A plan to deliver us all to a FEMA camp somewhere sometime in the future, see NDAA act recently signed by Il Duce 2.0

Yeah, what's not to like.    /Sarc off/

JR, that's all fine and good except for the FEMA camp nonsense, and the part about SNAP (Bush handed off a depression... during depression, unemployment goes up, and SNAP rolls go up, and attempts to put a floor under that with tax cuts and stimulus aren't measures intended to make them worse...)

But I have a feeling Sullivan attacks traditional right wingers who don't have a problem with Reagan tripling the debt, or Bush nearly doubling it during economic expansion, but now say we're all going to die if we don't get the deficit under control, so we need to cut taxes further, because it's a deficit CRISIS!! so we need to eliminate capital gains taxes on the plutocrats and make deficits WORSE, because if we don't get the deficit under control we're all going to die... We'll see when the article comes out, but that kind of thing should be the focus. 

Or the sudden issue with raising the debt ceiling after decades of that vote being routine under both parties, and accompanying REALLY stupid, dangerously ignorant statements that default for a few days wouldn't be any big deal in a multi-$trillion Treasury market.  I mean, who could have a problem with their interest payments coming a few days or weeks late, not like anyone is relying on that money or anything....  Or that we could just cut spending, by 40%, overnight, so default would never happen, just redo the federal budget, lay off millions, and disrupt millions of businesses over the weekend.... 

Same issue about civil liberties - the same people cheering torture and black sites and GITMO and indefinite detention and retroactive immunity for the telecoms are just now worried about NDAA, that receive huge GOP support, which is proof Obama is going to put you in a FEMA camp. 

Or he might mention the right wing complaints about Obama and immigration, who has broken all time records for deporting illegals, deporting more every year than Bush in the year he hit the maximum, is failing to secure the border, which was a red carpet during the Bush years.... 

[Sasquatch]

What's wrong, did the race card not score as many points as the dumb card? I just hope Obama will run on his record during his re-election attempt.

I imagine one of the reasons for this article is to deflect the anger the HOPE-and-CHANGE crowd has at The One.

My problem with Obama critics is they rely on evidence-and-fact-free talking points. 

Wait a minute. I thought YOU were an Obama critic? This explains a lot. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

You give me one good reason why anyone should go vote for Barrack Obama in November.  Just one.  I'm all ears.

I personally am no better off, in fact worse, than I was 3 years ago.  Our economy is no better off.  The geo-political temperature of the globe has risen under Obama's State Dept. Crony DC Capitalism is alive and well 3 years into Obama.  We still have GITMO, despite Obama's lies.  In fact now, we can ship Americans off to Gitmo if they're deemed "terrorists".  The national debt continues to spiral upward under this do-nothing President and Congress.

So you explain to me what Obama has done to keep his job for 4 more years.  I'm riveted for your response.

[Dementia_Madness]

http://biggovernment.com/jpollak/2012/01/16/why-is-andrew-sullivan-so-dumb/

Sullivan, who claims to care about national debt, begins by arguing, contrary to reality, that Obama’s massive $787 billion stimulus (actually, $862 billion) turned the economy around. He offers no proof other than the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy familiar from basic economics. Sullivan also ignores the composition of the stimulus, which shoveled cash to cronies and bloated big states with their massive public sector obligations.

In addition, Sullivan claims that Obama’s auto bailout succeeded–when in fact it pushed aside property rights and subsidized failed “green” cars, rather than allowing car makers to rebuild through normal bankruptcy. He also commends Obama for continuing George W. Bush’s bank bailouts–but does not mention the Dodd-Frank financial “reforms” that enshrine “too big to fail,” hurt small businesses and fail to address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Next, Sullivan tries to defend Obama on taxes, pointing out that the president passed tax cuts as part of the stimulus. He ignores the numerous new taxes and tax increases that Obama signed into law–from higher cigarette taxes to the many ObamaCare taxes–as well as the glaring fact that Obama has been campaigning for the past several years on the promise to raise taxes on the rich, and would have done so if not for Congress.

Sullivan’s defense of ObamaCare is that it is more “moderate” than it might have been. That is hardly a measure of success–and after devious accounting tricks, thousands of waivers, and the abandonment of ObamaCare’s Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program, the law is clearly on a path to failure. Fundamentally, it is unconstitutional–a reality Sullivan does not care to note in his encomium to Obama.

On foreign policy, Sullivan hails Obama’s success in the death of Osama bin Laden–giving a fantastical account of the president’s courage, and perpetuating the false meme that Bush had “ignored” Al Qaeda. In fact, it was the war in Iraq–and the interrogation methods that Sullivan decries–that produced the intelligence that led to bin Laden.

Aside from the war on Al Qaeda, Obama squandered every diplomatic and military success bequeathed to him by Bush. He destroyed missile defense in Europe, and wasted hard-won gains in Iraq by withdrawing troops against the advice of the military. While appeasing Iran and gutting the future of our defense, Obama alienated and undermined U.S allies. Sullivan, who detests Israel, even applauds Obama’s pointless confrontation with Benjamin Netanyahu–hardly a way to sell a second Obama term.

Having dealt with conservatives (in his own mind at least), Sullivan lists reasons that the left should be pleased with the president they elected. He’s correct that liberals should back Obama; they will never again see a U.S. president with such radical policies and pedigree. But he overlooks the degree to which Obama has discredited left-wing theory by exposing its flaws in practice–the real reason the left is distancing itself from him.

What is most telling in Sullivan’s admonition to liberals is his use of Obama’s inaugural metaphor of the “clenched fist.” The president, he says, “begins by extending a hand to his opponents” and outwits them when they respond “by raising a fist.” Yet Obama was referring to foreign policy, not U.S. politics. Once in office, of course, Obama embraced America’s enemies and bullied domestic opponents–as even the left knows all too well.

Sullivan quotes George Orwell: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” What is in front of Sullivan’s nose is Obama’s incompetence. He has coasted on the military success of his Republican predecessor, and is taking credit for moderate economic progress enabled by a Republican Congress that has held taxes, regulation, and spending in check. If he wins in 2012, Obama will again have Republicans to thank.

[Dementia_Madness]

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/01/we-must-be-really-really-stupid.php

Well, sure. We who are unhappy that unemployment has increased on Obama’s watch, that over-regulation has stymied economic growth, that our children now owe a $15 trillion debt that we can’t pay–hey, we’re just dumb! We obviously aren’t smart enough to understand how devastating our economy, unemploying millions of Americans and burdening our children with trillions of dollars in debt is really a great idea.

If that’s what you think, you are a liberal and you may take Newsweek seriously. The rest of us remember when the publication sold for $1. Hey, we Power Liners may be stupid, but we actually operate in the black. And, more broadly, the time when liberals could seriously try to peddle the lie that conservatives are stupid is long, long gone.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/new-emnewsweekem-cover-why-are-obamas-critics-so-dumb_616782.html

If in recent years it seems as if Newsweek has been descending into self-parody,

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2012/01/16/newsweek_and_andrew_sullivan_are_trolling_us

Written by conservative-turned-Obama-loyalist Andrew Sullivan, the story is a doozy about how conservatives are delusional and the left-wing base is just dumber than the President. The piece is a case study in exactly how Obama wishes to portray himself: as a blank canvas upon which anyone can project their most ambitious and noble desires in a politician.

Sullivan claims Obama could be considered "a fiscal conservative" if all you do is ignore his administration's reactions to the financial crisis, ignoring "the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president." Sullivan says that the claim that Obama has raised taxes "again... is not true," ignoring the myriad tax hikes hidden away in Obamacare.

Meanwhile, the diagnosis of the modern Republican party that Sullivan offers up is just as wrong. He claims that "Republicans have refused to raise a single dollar of net revenue from anyone." While it depends on what baseline one is using, Sullivan must have slept through the Toomey plan, a proposal that would raise $300 million over the next ten years. Not to mention the GOP's attempt to let the payroll tax cut expire, certainly something that could be considered a tax increase.

The Obama Delusion, the idea that the President can be all things to all people, is prevalent throughout the piece. Sullivan writes that "Obama was not elected, despite liberal fantasies, to be a left-wing crusader. He was elected as a pragmatic, unifying reformist who would be more responsible than Bush." If that's the case, then Obama is, quite simply, a typical politician. The President rode to a historical victory on the backs of his hyper-leftwing supporters who believed that he would close Guantanamo Bay, end the Patriot Act, give free health care to everyone, join labor unions on the picket lines, and pull out of Afghanistan.

http://www.idiots4obama.com/

enjoy

[NCVol]

You give me one good reason why anyone should go vote for Barrack Obama in November.  Just one.  I'm all ears.

It's a good question. 

1) The only choice you'll have is a republican, and the last time we tried that he left a shattered economy and depression, and two unfunded wars and led us far down the road of dismantling the civil liberties you and I are both concerned about.  I have no idea how anyone can forget Bush's record so quickly and pretend that this all began with Obama.  It didn't and you know it. 

2) We'll likely have several openings on the Supreme Court, and I for one want no chance that we'll have more of what gave us Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, as well as a string of decisions that seems to always go against the little guy. 

3) The right wing promises to cut taxes on the plutocrats and balance that with more pain for the masses.  In fact, their open agenda is to serve as the puppets for the Chamber boys.  You can say that Obama is little better, and that's true, but that is no reason why I'd voluntarily vote for someone who is PROUD of serving the plutocracy and is openly contemptuous of the working class. 

4) If you took off your Obama hating blinders, you might realize that he's a moderate, probably RIGHT of Richard Nixon on many issues, and the choice we'll have is a moderate versus a right wing radical.  Quite honestly it scares me to death to think we might get GOP control of all three again, with what the GOP has become.  I'm not sure we can recover.  As is, with Obama, we're likely headed towards more do nothing from Congress and retaining a critical check on what I see as just crazy stuff from the GOP. 

5) As much as I hated where Obamacare ended up, it was a huge step in the right direction, and the GOP has no plans except to go back to where we were, but worse, and healthcare is the really only big problem we have fiscally going forward.  That and taxes.  And on both measures, I don't trust the GOP since they tell us their ideas are either proven failures - more of the Laffer Curve magic, making the rich richer will trickle down and tax cuts increase revenues!!! - or they refuse to engage in meaningful debate about HOW to reform medical care, in part by learning how every other country on the planet manages to spend roughly half our costs and insure almost every citizen. 

6) On items where Obama has failed - trade for example, regulating the banks, war - either he's a clone of standard GOP or he's got a slight advantage, i.e. he's the least awful choice.  I can't think of any important policy choice on which I trust the current GOP more than Obama.  Just as one example, it's right wingers and democratic neocons that are pushing for war with Iran. 

[Jeremy Roenick]

The most important, and really only item of concern...

Obama's failure to address the national debt.  He has been aided in this by an absolute failure of a Congress.  This is a ticking time bomb and will be our undoing.  Make no mistake, this is the SINGLE most important domestic and national security issue on the table.  Everything else is moot compared to this.  And it has only continued to spiral out of control on his watch.

Romney has no plan to deal with it.  Newt has no plan to deal with it.  Santorum has no plan to deal with it.

So if you vote for any of these candidates, including Obama, you're saying you're o.k. with where our fiscal policy is taking us.  That's either major-league head-in-the-sand ignorance, or simply not acknowledging the importance of the matter and the stakes for failure.

All this other stuff might as well be static, if that runaway freight train isn't stopped.

[MRM]

It's a good question. 

1) The only choice you'll have is a republican, and the last time we tried that he left a shattered economy and depression, and two unfunded wars and led us far down the road of dismantling the civil liberties you and I are both concerned about.  I have no idea how anyone can forget Bush's record so quickly and pretend that this all began with Obama.  It didn't and you know it. 

Saying a group of people from one group will act the same as one person from the same group is not a fair comparison.