Obama - Finally an intellectual, thoughtful American leader!

Politics International Politics
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From Kristof’s column in the New York Times:

[quote]Mr. Obama, unlike most politicians near a microphone, exults in complexity. He doesn’t condescend or oversimplify nearly as much as politicians often do, and he speaks in paragraphs rather than sound bites. Global Language Monitor, which follows linguistic issues, reports that in the final debate, Mr. Obama spoke at a ninth-grade reading level, while John McCain spoke at a seventh-grade level.

Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re caught with brains in their heads. [/quote]
Finally, the leader of the free world is someone with more than just people skills (although Obama has these in spades, too). We get a president who was articulate even before he started campaigning, a president who wrote books without the help of a ghost-writer, a president who shoots hoops, a president with a favorite philosopher, even a favorite poet. We get a renaissance man, a polymath, a homo universalis. It’s about time! :bravo:

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:bravo:

Yes, finally an intelligent president!

I can finally hold my head up high and proudly say “I am an American.” What a great feeling! :America:

I knew I would be voting for whichever Democrat won the primary, but I was totally blown away by his speech, “Toward a More Perfect Union”, that he made last spring. That is what we need in a leader.

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That’s what you need in a leader? Speeches and talk? A man of rhetorics?[/quote]
Much more than that: an intelligent, insightful man who gets it.

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That’s what you need in a leader? Speeches and talk? A man of rhetorics?[/quote]
Much more than that: an intelligent, insightful man who gets it.[/quote]

Been 4 years down the road and back again? Enlighten me, what happens?

Obama hasn’t gotten anything yet. Let’s not blind ourselves and call him God. He is popular - but so are tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. I will call Obama intelligent when he shows his ability to identify and solve problems, make the right decisions, at the right times, without regard for his own popularity, and appropriately deal with being in one of the most powerful positions that any man can hold. I will call him insightful when he shows foresight and doesn’t fix your country’s problems with ducktape and bandaids, and whether or not that will have happened we won’t even know four years from now.

He is well-spoken, which counts for nothing. It’s packaging. A cherry on top. His true worth has yet to be determined.

If you go off and declare the man holy now, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment later.

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That’s what you need in a leader? Speeches and talk? A man of rhetorics?

I’d be very, very wary of a smooth talker in the president’s seat. The better he is at talking, the less likely you are to notice he’s full of shit.[/quote]
He has potential. An intellectual, thoughtful leader is more likely to make good decisions than a stupid one or a senile one. Just my most humble opinion.

Edit: I mean, if I had to choose between a stupid guy or a smart guy (or gal), I would choose the smart one. Might be the wrong decision, but I would figure I made the best bet.

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Where did that Cold War-era chestnut come from?

“We”? Excuse me, but…we? What the phrick? Aren’t you Canadian? If so, here’s a newsflash: he’s not your leader, and he’s not mine (me being Canadian, as I presume you are), and he will have very little impact on your or my life unless he starts pressing buttons connected to nuclear weapons or seals the U.S. airtight in terms of trade.

In fact, if Mr. Obama turns out to be a protectionist, as it is rumoured, his presidency could be somewhat negative for Canada. Hey, I’m happy that the Americans finally got rid of a moron and all, sure, but this exultation about an American election is bizarre. Even more, this great outpouring of praise and worship of this particular politician is unseemly and unnerving. Have otherwise sane people lost their marbles? You’d actually put that much faith in, or would draw that much inspiration from, a politician? Really? Someone who at the end of the day is a cynical, lying and power-hungry opportunist, as all political leaders are to varying degrees?

Jayzus, get a grip. He’s still American, fer crissakes. He’s still going to send the U.S. military into places it shouldn’t go, he’s still going to make big, blundering mistakes, and he’s still going to act with that tiresome sense of entitlement that Americans bizarrely seem to think non-Americans find endearing, etcetera. You think he somehow stops being American because he got elected?

He’s not your leader. Americans are excited because a black man got elected president. Good for them. It doesn’t mean a thing to me as a Canadian, though, and the fact that it obviously does to you is really strange.

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Where did that Cold War-era chestnut come from?

“We”? Excuse me, but…we? What the phrick? Aren’t you Canadian?[/quote]
My usage of the word “we” derives from my membership in the community of the free world. Also, as a former college student in Indiana, American politics interest me, and as a Canadian who has been out of Canada for most of my adult life, American politics resonate more with me than do Canadian politics. Ok? :laughing:

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What the US does has massive repercussions around the world. The Clinton and Bush Administrations demonstrate that in their starkly different effects on the world stage.

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[quote=“Ah Q”]Obama hasn’t gotten anything yet. Let’s not blind ourselves and call him God.

…

He is well-spoken, which counts for nothing. It’s packaging. A cherry on top. His true worth has yet to be determined.

If you go off and declare the man holy now, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment later.[/quote]
Nobody’s calling him god (except for his critics, ironically), nobody’s calling him a panacea.

It’s not whether he can speak. It’s what he speaks about. His liberal values closely mesh with mine and with the majority of Americans. I don’t agree with him on everything. But I agree much more with Obama than with his opponent, or with Bush, or any president in my lifetime, even Clinton.

Yes, time will tell. But from what I’ve seen so far, he has all the ingredients to make a great president, including smarts, honesty, liberal values, and a concern for the lives of the common man. Far more than I’ve ever seen at this stage in any president-elect in my lifetime.

It’s all relative. Gotta remember, in my lifetime, I have seen too many crappy presidents, with Clinton being the best among them by far up to this point.

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I understood that. But “leader of the free world” is a smarmy American epithet that has no real meaning outside of Arkansas, or wherever.

That’s just sad.

A very good case might be made that Clinton might have been even more militant following 9-11. Different presidents don’t really differ that much for people outside of the U.S.

Americans can set up protectionist policies, or walk down the sidewalk of my city talking loudly, scarfing down donuts and knocking over sandwich boards with their mammoth arses, but that doesn’t mean their president is my leader anymore than Stephen Harper is their leader because Canadians are currently loathe to buy anything but Japanese and European automobiles and thus are partly contributing to the economic troubles of American automakers. The current economic slowdown was caused by greedy American loansharks: that doesn’t make Obama my leader.

I agree with the title of this thread, but I’d omit the exclamation mark. The president of the U.S. is not a rightwing ideologue or a moron: congratulations, and welcome to our century.

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[quote=“Maoman”]From Kristof’s column in the New York Times:

[quote]Mr. Obama, unlike most politicians near a microphone, exults in complexity. He doesn’t condescend or oversimplify nearly as much as politicians often do, and he speaks in paragraphs rather than sound bites. Global Language Monitor, which follows linguistic issues, reports that in the final debate, Mr. Obama spoke at a ninth-grade reading level, while John McCain spoke at a seventh-grade level.

Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re caught with brains in their heads. [/quote]
Finally, the leader of the free world is someone with more than just people skills (although Obama has these in spades, too). We get a president who was articulate even before he started campaigning, a president who wrote books without the help of a ghost-writer, a president who shoots hoops, a president with a favorite philosopher, even a favorite poet. We get a renaissance man, a polymath, a homo universalis. It’s about time! :bravo:[/quote]

I wouldn’t call him a renaissance man, homo universalis, or a polymath. Those are particularly specific terms which apply to extremely few people. But I would agree with the rest of what you wrote. He is not only a breath of fresh air, he is a remarkably gifted individual for a politician. I’m particularly impressed with this level of articulation. As long as people don’t refer to him as the ‘leader of the free world’, or ‘the most powerful man in the world’.

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[quote=“Chewycorns”][quote=“Chris”]

Yes, time will tell. But from what I’ve seen so far, he has all the ingredients to make a great president, including smarts, honesty, liberal values, and a concern for the lives of the common man.[/quote]

This type of sentence makes me want to reach out for a “puke” bucket. Common man? You think Soros and other Obama financial backers give two “hoots” about the common man?[/quote]
Oh, you’re just sore that the liberals gave the conservatives a well-deserved ass-whupping. :discodance:

(Oh, and a significant amount of Obama’s campaign finances came from us, the common man.)

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Where did that Cold War-era chestnut come from?[/quote]
CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, AP, Reuters, BBC, CBC, …

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We finally broke the 100 IQ points barrier in the presidency! It’s been so long in coming that it does feel kind of like the Second Coming. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop though when we finally learn exactly what character flaw it was that made Barack Obama seek the presidency.

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That was already revealed during his campaign. He’s a secret Muslim with a fiery Liberation Theologist pastor; a Marxist Kenyan-born Ayrab who pals around with terrorists. Remember the terrorist fist bump! He’s also a wooden, skirt-chasing flip-flopper![/quote]

I’m hopeful that Barack Obama is as good a person as he appears to be. If he has any “secret flaw” I would have to say at this point it’s most likely in the form of some of his supporters who appear to be almost as dogmatic as George Bush’s supporters.

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Yes, clearly nobody’s perfect, and every president and politician should be watched like a hawk and criticized for his policies. But the same applied to Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, etc., and the same would have applied to McCain, Kerry, Gore, Dole, Perot, etc.

McCain set off far more warning bells in my mind than Obama did, just as Bush Jr. set off tons more warning bells in my mind in 2000 and 2004, with Gore and Kerry setting off relatively few. My estimation in 2000 turned out to be very very correct. And with Obama apparently set to lift the stem cell restrictions and the abortion gag rule for overseas family planning efforts, I feel my estimation is reliable once again.

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The same all flaw that’s made every man before him do it= 1) power 2)He believes he can do it better.

O has father issues, so what a great way to overcome them by overcompensating and becoming this person of great power.

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George Putsch is “someone people want to have a beer with”. Obama is someone that people want to have a conversation with.

Don’t get your hopes too high - people actually expected Nancy “Palooka” Pelosi to do her job, and the only thing she did in two years was “take impeachment off the table”. Wait and see if Obama keeps his promises.

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Well, one thing that’s definitely true about Obama - he’s from a far different generation than Bush, McCain - or even Hillary. When McCain sarcastically asked, “Exactly who IS Barrack Obama?”, Obama quipped, “What does he mean? It’s all right there on my Facebook page.”

I’m still getting emails from his campaign asking for my input in where “we” go from here. Call me naive, but that isn’t something you’d hear “the decider”. Obama said previously that he wants government spending to be made “Google-able”: Time to Shine Light on Government Spending

[quote]Enter Sen. Barack Obama, Rep. Ron Paul, Sen. Sam Brownback, Sen. Mike Gravel, Rep. Dennis Kucinch and Mr. John Cox. These presidential candidates have all embraced the concept of “Google government” by signing the Oath of Presidential Transparency— which is sponsored by a non-partisan coalition led by the Reason Foundation.

By signing the oath they are promising, should they win the presidency in 2008, that they will issue an executive order during their first month in office instructing the entire executive branch to put into practice the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a Google-like search tool that will allow taxpayers to hop online and see exactly how their tax dollars are being spent on federal contracts, grants and earmarks.[/quote]

And now, there’s this: The Obama Transition As Reality TV

[quote]One very smart thing Obama’s team is doing is documenting what is going on behind the scenes so if the American public wants to find out more, they can…

Note how they’re talking about how their policies will help create jobs, but still be bi-partisanship. And this consistent messaging makes me believe that it isn’t just lip service. I genuinely believe that Obama and the people who are working for him want to unify this country in a way I’ve never experience in my lifetime.

It’s pretty clear to me that [b]Obama is completely changing the game by using social technologies like YouTube and blogs and comments to make Americans feel like they’re really included in this presidency and that we’re united by a common purpose to make this country better. It’s as if nearly everybody can have a seat at the table if they want to be included. All they have to do is add their voice at Change.gov and they can be part of the conversation.

And after 8 years of a historically secretive administration, this level of transparency is not just refreshing…it’s imperative to restoring people’s faith in government.[/b][/quote]

The URL shows videos of Obama’s transition team discussing environmental and energy policies, and another of someone actually answering questions put to the administration at the change.gov website.

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Leader of the free world my hairy ass! Takes more than the biggest military arsenal pointing barrels at people’s face to be recognized as a leader. And that’s regardless who is elected.

Christ, if you used the money that has been spent in Iraq and used it differently, you could buy an education for just about every child in Africa. Or you could treat millions of kids dying of malaria every year. Health care for US citizens wouldn’t be a bad idea, either…

But instead, this is what the US is doing with their money:


Warning- Very gory images-Click at your own risk.

This shit will have to stop before I even come close to consider the US leader of anything. It’s up to yous, but count me out for the time being. And I seriously doubt that Obama will be able to lead a greedy world to change its ways. Let’s see if he can manage his own country before we call him a world leader, I say.

marboulette