Posts Tagged ‘obama’

The Half way point or the Quarter Marker

Posted: January 21, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

Today begins either the second half of the Obama presidency or the end of the first quarter of the Obama presidency.

There are people on the right and the left who think both ways in terms of what is going to happen. Given my years of blogging and following politics I can definitely say this:

Who knows?

Two years ago this president was riding above the clouds, two months ago his party got pounded at the polls. Consider:

We have no idea what new crises will arise.

We don’t know how the republican congress is going to govern.

We don’t know who will win the battle between the tea party wing and the establishment wing of the party.

We don’t know how the democratic senate will act.

We don’t know if Iran will get the bomb…

…or how Israel will react

We don’t know what North Korea will do…

…or China….

…or Russia..

We don’t know if the president will govern in order to get re-elected…

…or to advance his beliefs

We don’t know the results of the Economic crisis in Greece…

Or Spain…

Or Ireland…

Or Portugal.

And we don’t know how the war will go and if the president will continue to try to win it.

None of these things are known and in fact there wasn’t a lot we knew two years ago. So what DO we know?

Only two things really, one that we already did two years ago and one we did not:

We’ve always known you can’t outlaw the business cycle, you can only mess it up a bit. That is and always was true.

What we DO know now that we didn’t before is how the president governs and how he acts in a crisis.

Two years ago a vast majority of the public (and the Nobel committee) projected their hopes on this president based only on what they felt having no idea how he would govern.

Now we have seen him in action. We know exactly how he has governed in a crisis. No person making a judgment in a democratic primary or in the general election in 2012 has any excuse for deceiving themselves.

Well Maybe Andrew Sullivan, don’t forget he thought the president deserved the Nobel Peace Prize when he was awarded it.

Past performance is not guarantee of future actions but it’s what we have, and we should judge accordingly.

Oh and one final thing we do know, the next two years won’t be boring.

Update: I hope you didn’t miss this at Nice Deb

Update 2: Stacy gives another example of how things can change in year.

Update 3: Instalanche via update! Thanks Glenn. Ironically this ‘Lanche brings to mind a post from December 2009 when Charles Johnson was 233 Instalanche’s up on me. It really illustrates Stacy’s point on how things change.

The single best illustration of the media and the president

Posted: January 20, 2011 by datechguy in media
Tags: , , ,

…was Day By Day Yesterday

Go to http://www.daybydaycartoon.com and read it every day!

The media has two years to figure this out. Considering how they failed to report on the poll sample this morning I don’t think it will happen.

Flash Poll weighed in favor of Democrats 3/2 favors Obama!

Posted: January 20, 2011 by datechguy in internet/free speech, media, opinion/news
Tags: , , , , ,

Morning Joe et/al is breathlessly reporting that the president’s number are up, that a slight majority favor keeping Obamacare and things are turning around for the pres.

The media is all over this but if you look at the actual report there is a set of numbers not getting play:

Q15 Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as (ROTATE:) a Democrat, a Republican, an independent, or something else? (IF “DEMOCRAT” OR “REPUBLICAN,” ASK:) Would you call yourself a strong (Democrat/Republican) or not a very strong (Democrat/Republican)? (IF “NOT SURE,” CODE AS “NOT VERY STRONG DEMOCRAT/REPUBLICAN.”) (IF “INDEPENDENT,” ASK:) Do you think of yourself as closer to the Republican Party, closer to the Democratic Party, or do you think of yourself as strictly independent? (IF “NOT SURE,” CODE AS “STRICTLY INDEPENDENT.”)
Strong Democrat ………………………….20
Not very strong Democrat ……………..11
Independent/lean Democrat …………..10
Strictly Independent………………………18
Independent/lean Republican …………11
Not very strong Republican ……………9
Strong Republican ………………………..12
Other (VOL) …………………………………7
Not sure …………………………………….2

So let’s get this straight, this poll of Registered (vs likely) voters that is showing the president’s numbers improving samples 31% democrats (or 41% counting learners) and 21% Republicans (32% counting learners). And you are judging national opinion on this? You are calling this news?

Think of it this way. If you had a poll on the popularity of the Red Sox vs the Yankees and asked 3 Guys from Boston for every 2 guys from New York City how would the Red Sox do?

This is what you call spin. The media manufacturing a story to create a bounce that doesn’t actually exist.

If people fall for this it is their own fault.

I didn’t see the president’s speech

Posted: January 13, 2011 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , , ,

After a tough drive and an afternoon of shoveling I was dead tired so I hit the sack early so I didn’t hear the president’s speech or read it yet.

The clips on the TV are OK. On Morning Joe they are giving it the Gettysburg Address treatment but I suspect if his entire speech was “I like cheeseburgers” they would find a reason to be complementing him but they have seen the speech and I have not so I’m at a disadvantage.

I still resent Joe’s statement that both sides were trying to make hay of this. One side attacked and the other defended.

I’ll withhold my own judgment on the speech until I read it and check some reviews. Anything I do before I take the kid to school will likely be here, after that I’ll put it on a new post.

Update: From what I’m seeing the speech was pretty good. Michelle Malkin notes it was a good speech.

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