Author Topic: Obama's Leadership  (Read 65889 times)

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #50 on: December 02, 2013, 10:25:33 AM »
Obama.....incompetent, unqualified, and completely unremarkable.

See, I disagree.  I think he's completely shitty if the goal is a better America.

But since I think obama's goals involve a welfare state, socialized medicine, and a weakened american spirit, descending into soft weak liberal mediocrity...

then YES - his presidency is a wild success.   Repubs smile with the whole "Obama is a failure!" but that's cause they assume they know what his goals are.  If he is as liberal as they say he is - then his goals are liberal goals.  he's getting those done pretty well.

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #51 on: December 04, 2013, 08:49:03 AM »
Didn't the president say he was committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons that if they did so it would be a "game changer"?

Iran enrichment capacity expanded dramatically on Obama's watch
By James Rosen
Published December 04, 2013
FoxNews.com

Before he paused to allow reporters to ask questions about the nuclear deal with Iran that he had just announced in Geneva, Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to anticipate one line of criticism about the accord -- that it effectively cedes to the Islamic regime the right to enrich uranium, despite half a dozen U.N. Security Council resolutions declaring the activity illegal. And he moved, preemptively, to address it.

"In 2003, when the Iranians made an offer to the former administration with respect to their nuclear program, there were 164 centrifuges," Kerry said in a news conference held in the early hours of Nov. 24. "That offer was not taken. Subsequently, sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing."

In essence, the secretary of State was suggesting the staggering number of centrifuges that Iran now has effectively forced the hand of the P5+1 negotiators at the talks, making the placement of restrictions on Iran's nuclear program the only realistic prospect the negotiators could pursue. Kerry also suggested that had only President George W. Bush done the right thing a decade ago, the United States and its allies in the P5+1 -- Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia -- wouldn't have found themselves in such a precarious negotiating posture.

Yet a Fox News review of reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and analyses prepared by leading research institutions -- including the Arms Control Association, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Federation of American Scientists -- shows that the vast majority of Iran's enrichment capability came online during the Obama administration.

It is known that by late 2007, Iran possessed about 3,000 centrifuges. Over the course of Bush's final 12 to 15 months in the White House, it can be assumed safely that Iran added to, but probably did not fully double, the number of centrifuges it had installed. A fair estimate would accordingly place the number of the spinning machines that Iran had on hand at the beginning of 2009 at 5,000.

This would mean that roughly 25 percent of the regime's current total of centrifuges had been installed when the Bush-Cheney era ended. Put another way: Roughly 74 percent of the centrifuges Iran now has on hand were installed since the Obama-Biden team assumed office. Analysts say 10,000 of the total are actively enriching uranium to low levels, inconsistent with nuclear weapons production but well suited to the task should a decision be made to pursue that goal.

Yet in a series of interviews he gave before leaving Geneva, Kerry expanded on his theme, telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos: "In 2003, Iran made an offer to the Bush administration that they would, in fact, do major things with respect to their program. They had 164 centrifuges. Nobody took that [deal] -- nothing has happened. Therefore, here we are in 2013 -- they have 19,000 centrifuges and they're closer to a weapon. You cannot sit there and pretend that you're just going to get the thing you want while they continue to move towards the program that they've been chasing....You can't always start where you want to wind up."

Kerry's concise history of the Iranian nuclear program, which encompassed only the years 2003 and 2013, naturally omitted quite a lot. Determining exactly when the regime crossed a given technical threshold can be difficult, given the opacity of the government and the complex of commercial, military, and scientific institutions that have contributed to the program over the last two decades. The secretary plans to testify before Congress on Iran, for the first time since the deal was announced, in a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Dec. 10 -- an opportunity to provide more clarity.

A spokesman for Kerry professed ignorance of the exact numbers involved. "We have not questioned the fact that Iran has made progress on enrichment and on developing a nuclear weapon," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Dec. 2. "That's one of the reasons why we stepped up sanctions over the past couple of years."

But when confronted with the notion that at least 70 percent of the expansion in Iran's centrifuge program took place on President Obama's watch, Psaki countered: "I think what we're focused on at this point is the fact that we're now at a point where we are halting and rolling back the progress of their program and we're working towards a comprehensive agreement to bring an end to it."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/04/iran-enrichment-capacity-expanded-dramatically-on-obama-watch/

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #53 on: December 04, 2013, 01:08:53 PM »
http://washingtonexaminer.com/poof-public-says-americas-world-leadership-has-tumbled-to-40-year-low/article/2540096


Total FAIL FAIL FAIL

Definitely a sign of poor leadership.  Text of the article:

For the first time in nearly 40 years, a majority of Americans believe the United States is less important around the world and that it should mind its own business, a stunning rejection of President Obama’s foreign policy just four years after he received the Nobel Prize.

A new Pew Research Center poll found that 53 percent of people believe that the U.S. is playing a less important role as a world leader than a decade ago, the highest figure since 1974.

Worse: 70 percent said that the U.S. is respected less than in the past, almost matching the high reached under former President George W. Bush, whose foreign policy Obama pledged to reverse.

Other key highlights from Pew’s release:

— By a 56 percent to 34 percent margin, more disapprove than approve of Obama’s handling of foreign policy. The public also disapproves of his handling of Syria, Iran, China and Afghanistan by wide margins.

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— For the first time, 52 percent believe the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally.”

— Some 51 percent said the U.S. does too much in helping solve world problems.

— Most say the U.S. should engage internationally on economic issues. Fully 77 percent say that growing trade and business ties between the U.S. and other countries is good.

— Just 31 percent of the public say the war in Afghanistan has made the country safer from terrorism.

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #54 on: December 06, 2013, 10:54:50 AM »
Hemorrhaging.

Gallup: Hispanics split with Obama
By Mario Trujillo

President Obama’s approval rating has taken the steepest dive with Hispanics since his reelection last year, according to a Gallup analysis.

Obama's approval rating recorded a 23-percentage-point drop among Hispanics since last year, compared to an average drop among all Americans of 12 percent.

Fifty-two percent of Hispanics still approve of Obama, but that's a drop from 75 percent in December 2012.
Exit polls showed that Obama won Hispanics by a 71percent to 27 percent margin in the 2012 election against GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Other voting groups that make up Obama's base also have seen 15-point plus drop offs — including people making less than $24,000 a year, nonwhites and young voters.

Centrist and independent voters also recorded a 16-percent and 15-percent drop, respectively.

Democrats have seen a 13-point drop, while centrist Democratic approval of Obama dropped 16 percent.

A separate poll by Harvard’s Institute of Politics released Wednesday recorded a similar decline in support among young people.

Obama’s approval among 18- to 29-year-olds has dropped 15 points to a low of 46 percent in Gallup’s monthly average. The Harvard poll of young voters found Obama’s overall approval rating had dropped to 41 percent.

Gallup noted that Hispanics have been the most volatile demographic in terms of supporting Obama throughout his presidency.

Obama's approval among Hispanics peaked at 80 percent. Obama's lowest approval rating level recorded for Hispanics is 49 percent.

Overall, the drop off in support has come most drastically from people who tend to have high support for Obama because approval among those who disagree with him cannot get much lower. His approval among Republicans has only dropped 3 points this year, from 11 percent to 8 percent support today.

Obama’s approval rating has dropped among every demographic and his overall approval stands at 41 percent in November's monthly Gallup average.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/192233-poll-obamas-approval-drops-most-with-hispanics

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #55 on: January 07, 2014, 11:53:56 AM »
CNN: Former WH Official Acknowledges Obama's 'Maybe' Not Good at Governing
Only good at campaigning
8:31 AM, JAN 6, 2014
BY DANIEL HALPER     

CNN report Peter Hamby reports on a recent conversation he had with a former White House official:



"I talked to a former Obama White House person, just before Christmas, when Obama was sort of adrift, figuring out what to do, his poll numbers were pretty low. And he said, 'Look, the president needs to find an issue to campaign on. This is what he's good at. He's really good at campaigning. Maybe not governing,' according to this Democrat," Hamby said this morning on CNN.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cnn-former-wh-official-acknowledges-obamas-maybe-not-good-governing_773339.html

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #56 on: January 07, 2014, 01:41:13 PM »
Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty’

By Bob Woodward, Tuesday, January 7, 2:41 PM

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”

Obama, after months of contentious discussion with Gates and other top advisers, deployed 30,000 more troops in a final push to stabilize Afghanistan before a phased withdrawal beginning in mid-2011. “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.

As a candidate, Obama had made plain his opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion while embracing the Afghanistan war as a necessary response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, requiring even more military resources to succeed. In Gates’s highly emotional account, Obama remains uncomfortable with the inherited wars and distrustful of the military that is providing him options. Their different worldviews produced a rift that, at least for Gates, became personally wounding and impossible to repair.

It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president.

Gates’s severe criticism is even more surprising — some might say contradictory — because toward the end of “Duty,” he says of Obama’s chief Afghanistan policies, “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.” That particular view is not a universal one; like much of the debate about the best path to take in Afghanistan, there is disagreement on how well the surge strategy worked, including among military officials.

The sometimes bitter tone in Gates’s 594-page account contrasts sharply with the even-tempered image that he cultivated during his many years of government service, including stints at the CIA and National Security Council. That image endured through his nearly five years in the Pentagon’s top job, beginning in President George W. Bush’s second term and continuing after Obama asked him to remain in the post. In “Duty,” Gates describes his outwardly calm demeanor as a facade. Underneath, he writes, he was frequently “seething” and “running out of patience on multiple fronts.”

The book, published by Knopf, is scheduled for release Jan. 14.

[PHOTOS: A look at Robert Gates’s career in government] 

Gates writes about Obama with an ambivalence that he does not resolve, praising him as “a man of personal integrity” even as he faults his leadership. Though the book simmers with disappointment in Obama, it reflects outright contempt for Vice President Joe Biden and many of Obama’s top aides.

Biden is accused of “poisoning the well” against the military leadership. Thomas Donilon, initially Obama’s deputy national security adviser, and then-Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House coordinator for the wars, are described as regularly engaged in “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”

Gates is 70, nearly 20 years older than Obama. He has worked for every president going back to Richard Nixon, with the exception of Bill Clinton. Throughout his government career, he was known for his bipartisan detachment, the consummate team player. “Duty” is likely to provide ammunition for those who believe it is risky for a president to fill such a key Cabinet post with a holdover from the opposition party.

He writes, “I have tried to be fair in describing actions and motivations of others.” He seems well aware that Obama and his aides will not see it that way.

While serving as defense secretary, Gates gave Obama high marks, saying privately in the summer of 2010 that the president is “very thoughtful and analytical, but he is also quite decisive.” He added, “I think we have a similar approach to dealing with national security issues.”

Obama echoed Gates’s comments in a July 10, 2010, interview for my book “Obama’s Wars.” The president said: “Bob Gates has, I think, served me extraordinarily well. And part of the reason is, you know, I’m not sure if he considers this an insult or a compliment, but he and I actually think a lot alike, in broad terms.”

During that interview, Obama said he believed he “had garnered confidence and trust in Gates.” In “Duty,” Gates complains repeatedly that confidence and trust was what he felt was lacking in his dealings with Obama and his team. “Why did I feel I was constantly at war with everybody, as I have detailed in these pages?” he writes. “Why was I so often angry? Why did I so dislike being back in government and in Washington?” 

His answer is that “the broad dysfunction in Washington wore me down, especially as I tried to maintain a public posture of nonpartisan calm, reason and conciliation.”

His lament about Washington was not the only factor contributing to his unhappiness. Gates also writes of the toll taken by the difficulty of overseeing wars against terrorism and insurgencies in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Such wars do not end with a clear surrender; Gates acknowledges having ambiguous feelings about both conflicts. For example, he writes that he does not know what he would have recommended if he had been asked his opinion on Bush’s 2003 decision to invade Iraq.

Three years later, Bush recruited Gates — who had served his father for 15 months as CIA director in the early 1990s — to take on the defense job. The first half of “Duty” covers those final two years in the Bush administration. Gates reveals some disagreements from that period, but none as fundamental or as personal as those he describes with Obama and his aides in the book’s second half.

“All too early in the [Obama] administration,” he writes, “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials — including the president and vice president — became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander in chief and his military leaders.”

Gates offers a catalogue of various meetings, based in part on notes that he and his aides made at the time, including an exchange between Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that he calls “remarkable.”

He writes: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”

Earlier in the book, he describes Hillary Clinton in the sort of glowing terms that might be used in a political endorsement. “I found her smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world,” he wrote.

[READ: The Fix on what Gates’s memoir could mean for a Clinton campaign] 

March 3, 2010

“Duty” reflects the memoir genre, declaring that this is how the writer saw it, warts and all, including his own. That focus tends to give short shrift to the fuller, established record. For example, in recounting the difficult discussions that led to the Afghan surge strategy in 2009, Gates makes no reference to the six-page “terms sheet” that Obama drafted at the end, laying out the rationale for the surge and withdrawal timetable. Obama asked everyone involved to sign on, signaling agreement.

According to the meeting notes of another participant, Gates is quoted as telling Obama, “You sound the bugle . . . Mr. President, and Mike [Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] and I will be the first to charge the hill.”

Gates does not include such a moment in “Duty.” He picks up the story a bit later, after Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the central commander in charge of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, made remarks to the press suggesting he was not comfortable with setting a fixed date to start withdrawal.

At a March 3, 2011, National Security Council meeting, Gates writes, the president opened with a “blast.” Obama criticized the military for “popping off in the press” and said he would push back hard against any delay in beginning the withdrawal.

According to Gates, Obama concluded, “ ‘If I believe I am being gamed . . .’ and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.”

Gates continues: “I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing” Petraeus, and perhaps Mullen and Gates himself, “of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus. As I sat there, I thought: the president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

[READ: World Views: Gates was wrong ont he most important issue he ever faced] 

‘Breaches of faith’

Lack of trust is a major thread in Gates’s account, along with his unsparing criticism of Obama’s aides. At times, the two threads intertwine. For example, after the devastating 2010 Haitian earthquake that had left tens of thousands dead, Gates met with Obama and Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, about disaster relief.

Donilon was “complaining about how long we were taking,” Gates writes. “Then he went too far, questioning in front of the president and a roomful of people whether General [Douglas] Fraser [head of the U.S. Southern Command] was competent to lead this effort. I’ve rarely been angrier in the Oval Office than I was at that moment. . . . My initial instinct was to storm out, telling the president on the way that he didn’t need two secretaries of defense. It took every bit of my self-discipline to stay seated on the sofa.”

Gates confirms a previously reported statement in which he told Obama’s first national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, that he thought Donilon would be a “disaster” if he succeeded Jones (as Donilon did in late 2010). Gates writes that Obama quizzed him about this characterization; a one-on-one meeting with Donilon followed, and that “cleared the air,” according to Gates.

His second year with Obama proved as tough as the first. “For me, 2010 was a year of continued conflict and a couple of important White House breaches of faith,” he writes.

The first, he says, was Obama’s decision to seek the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays serving in the military. Though Gates says he supported the decision, there had been months and months of debate, with details still to work out. On one day’s notice, Obama informed Gates and Mullen that he would announce his request for a repeal of the law. Obama had “blindsided Admiral Mullen and me,” Gates writes.

Similarly, in a battle over defense spending, “I was extremely angry with President Obama,” Gates writes. “I felt he had breached faith with me . . . on the budget numbers.” As with “don’t ask, don’t tell,” “I felt that agreements with the Obama White House were good for only as long as they were politically convenient.”

Gates acknowledges forthrightly in “Duty” that he did not reveal his dismay. “I never confronted Obama directly over what I (as well as [Hillary] Clinton, [then-CIA Director Leon] Panetta, and others) saw as the president’s determination that the White House tightly control every aspect of national security policy and even operations. His White House was by far the most centralized and controlling in national security of any I had seen since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger ruled the roost.”

It got so bad during internal debates over whether to intervene in Libya in 2011 that Gates says he felt compelled to deliver a “rant” because the White House staff was “talking about military options with the president without Defense being involved.”

Gates says his instructions to the Pentagon were: “Don’t give the White House staff and [national security staff] too much information on the military options. They don’t understand it, and ‘experts’ like Samantha Power will decide when we should move militarily.” Power, then on the national security staff and now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been a strong advocate for humanitarian intervention.

Another time, after Donilon and Biden tried to pass orders to Gates, he told the two, “The last time I checked, neither of you are in the chain of command,” and said he expected to get orders directly from Obama.

Life at the top was no picnic, Gates writes. He did little or no socializing. “Every evening I could not wait to get home, get my office homework out of the way, write condolence letters to the families of the fallen, pour a stiff drink, wolf down a frozen dinner or carry out,” since his wife, Becky, often remained at their home in Washington state.

“I got up at five every morning to run two miles around the Mall in Washington, past the World War II, Korean, and Vietnam memorials, and in front of the Lincoln Memorial. And every morning before dawn, I would ritually look up at that stunning white statue of Lincoln, say good morning, and sadly ask him, How did you do it?”

The memoir’s title comes from a quote, “God help me to do my duty,” that Gates says he kept on his desk. The quote has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln’s war secretary, Edwin Stanton.

At his confirmation hearings to be Bush’s defense secretary in late 2006, Gates told the senators that he had not “come back to Washington to be a bump on a log and not say exactly what I think, and to speak candidly and, frankly, boldly to people at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue about what I believe and what I think needs to be done.”

But Gates says he did not speak his mind when the committee chairman listed the problems he would face as secretary. “I remember sitting at the witness table listening to this litany of woe and thinking, “What the hell am I doing here? I have walked right into the middle of a category-five shitstorm. It was the first of many, many times I would sit at the witness table thinking something very different from what I was saying.”

“Duty” offers the familiar criticism of Congress and its culture, describing it as “truly ugly.” Gates’s cold feelings toward the legislative branch stand in stark contrast to his warmth for the military. He repeatedly describes his affection for the troops, especially those in combat.

Gates wanted to quit at the end of 2010 but agreed to stay at Obama’s urging, finally leaving in mid-2011. He later joined a consulting firm with two of George W. Bush’s closest foreign policy advisers — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser during Bush’s second term. The firm is called RiceHadleyGates. In October, he became president-elect of the Boy Scouts of America.

Gates writes, “I did not enjoy being secretary of defense,” or as he e-mailed one friend while still serving, “People have no idea how much I detest this job.”

READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #57 on: January 07, 2014, 02:12:38 PM »
Dang.  Not surprised.   :-\

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #59 on: January 08, 2014, 10:53:10 AM »
Krauthammer: Gates' Revelations on Obama's Leadership 'Shocking'
Wednesday, 08 Jan 2014
By Melanie Batley

President Barack Obama is receiving harsh criticism for his policies in Afghanistan and Iraq following revelations by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates indicating the president did not have faith in the merit of the administration's strategy, despite his decision to order a "surge" in troops to the region.

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer expressed his shock about the details that emerged in Gates' forthcoming book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," specifically about how Gates realized three months after Obama announced the escalating troop levels that the president indicated he didn't believe it was the right way forward.

"Think about this—you're the secretary of defense. The president is sending 30,000 more troops into battle, and three months later, the secretary of defense realizes that Obama doesn't believe in the surge or believe in the war or believe in his own actions," Krauthammer said, speaking on Fox News' "Special Report."

"He doesn't believe in [Gen. David] Petraeus. He hates Karzi. He thinks the war isn't his. How can a commander-in-chief in good conscience do that?"

He reflected that Obama, having announced both the surge and at the same time the withdrawal of troops, has never publicly explained why the surge was important.

"He now has the lowest public approval of any war in modern history because it has no leadership. But I think this is a shocking revelation. I assumed that he didn't believe in this war from his own actions. But here's from somebody sitting with the president three months in. And I do think this is an indictment of the president that rises above everything else he's done in his presidency," Krauthammer said.

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham also weighed in on the revelations from the book, saying Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are to blame for the recent resurgence of al-Qaida in Iraq.

"I blame Obama and Biden for not listening to their commanders, rejecting sound advice and Bob Gates talks about that in his book, how military commanders were overruled by the political people in the White House," Graham said on Fox News' "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," according to Politico.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/krauthammer-gates-book-obama/2014/01/08/id/545940#ixzz2ppnuxBCR

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #60 on: January 23, 2014, 05:40:39 PM »
Obama Aborts the Opposition
by KEITH KOFFLER on JANUARY 23, 2014

If you want clear evidence that all President Obama’s rhetoric about reaching out to Republicans and uniting people has all been a plate of pork and beef baloney, then have a look at this, Obama’s celebratory statement Wednesday on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade:

Today, as we reflect on the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, we recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health.

We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to protecting a woman’s access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom.

And we resolve to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, support maternal and child health, and continue to build safe and healthy communities for all our children.  Because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.

This is among the most divisive and passionately debated issues in the nation’s history. And not a word for those who oppose abortion?

And who, please, is “we.” We affirm, we resolve, we recommit . . . Mr. President, it’s not we, it’s YOU.

Don’t claim to speak  for America when you don’t even make an attempt to include all Americans in your statements.

Obama’s “we” is actually no more than him and the smug company of his fellow liberals who have not the least bit of intellectual curiosity about opposing opinions and not a trace of question within their minds about their essential goodness and infallible reasoning.

The opposition is evil, wrong and dumb. Why include them in a statement? They don’t even get to be part of the American “we.”

America thought it had elected a visionary. But the man it put in office is nothing more than a very prosaic leftist, determined to exclude opposing opinions as he crusades for his agenda, immune to thoughts that someone else might have a point.

It’s all very run of the mill. And not the least bit presidential.

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2014/01/23/obama-aborts-opposition/

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #61 on: February 24, 2014, 12:21:12 PM »
Poll: U.S. thinks Obama not respected abroad
By LUCY MCCALMONT | 2/24/14

For the first time, a majority of Americans think President Barack Obama is not respected among world leaders, according to a new poll that found opinion has plunged “dramatically” in the past year.

Fifty-three percent now say Obama is not respected on the international stage, up from 43 percent a year ago, the Gallup poll on Monday shows. And the number who say they believe the president is respected has dropped to 41 percent from 51 percent over the same time, the poll found.

The pollster attributes the decline to the spate of difficult international issues the president has dealt with over the past year, including tensions with Russia and Israel, the situation in Syria and the tapping of phones calls of foreign leaders.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama jokes with '2016' governors)

Obama’s shift in his foreign approval comes largely from both Democrats and independents. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats say he is respected by other world leaders, down from 80 percent in 2013. Similarly, only 34 percent of independents say he is respected, down from 49 percent in 2013. Remaining consistent are Republicans. Nineteen percent say the president is not respected by other leaders, down 2 points from 2013.

Nevertheless, while Obama’s numbers are at their lowest, Gallup notes the all-time low since the question was first asked in 1994, was reached in 2007 when only 21 percent of respondents said former President George W. Bush was respected by other world leaders. The pollster also says former President Bill Clinton saw similar numbers to Obama’s in 1994 and 2000.

Americans’ view of their country is more favorable. Fifty-one percent say the U.S. is respected within the international community, 47 percent believe it is viewed unfavorably. However, 61 percent are dissatisfied with America’s position in the world today.

The Gallup poll was conducted Feb. 6-9 and surveyed 1,023 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/poll-us-thinks-obama-not-respected-abroad-103840.html#ixzz2uGyexcRT

Dos Equis

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #62 on: March 03, 2014, 11:49:40 AM »
He has been an ineffective leader on Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, North Korea, Iran, Benghazi, Russia, and now Ukraine.  Is it 2016 yet? 

headhuntersix

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #63 on: March 03, 2014, 11:55:06 AM »
Besides that he's been great..................O K left tell me where he's clearly come out on top on any one of these foreign policy messes. he got Bin laden.....that's it....great, no shit.
L

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #64 on: March 03, 2014, 12:07:00 PM »
Besides that he's been great..................O K left tell me where he's clearly come out on top on any one of these foreign policy messes. he got Bin laden.....that's it....great, no shit.

If O-Twink gets credit for Bin Laden - does he get blame for the 26 SEALs who went down in that ridiculous mission in the Chinuk?

dario73

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #65 on: March 03, 2014, 12:07:55 PM »
What leadership?

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #66 on: March 03, 2014, 12:10:20 PM »
The guy got re-elected.  As much as i hate him, it says more of the lack of leadership coming from the only party that was capable of winning it in an election that should have been a landslide.

dario73

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #67 on: March 03, 2014, 12:22:58 PM »
You expected a landslide? I picked the uselesscommunity organizer to win.


Right now, even if the GOP provides a viable candidate, he or she will be rejected by the media. Why? Because it's time to make history again. Let's continue with the social experiments. First a black is selected, now it's a woman's turn. Next, a homo.

On top of that, USA is an entitlement driven nation at this time. What can you give me for my vote?

This country will have to reach rockbottom before it wakes up. It's not there yet.

OzmO

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #68 on: March 03, 2014, 12:32:49 PM »
You expected a landslide? I picked the uselesscommunity organizer to win.


Right now, even if the GOP provides a viable candidate, he or she will be rejected by the media. Why? Because it's time to make history again. Let's continue with the social experiments. First a black is selected, now it's a woman's turn. Next, a homo.

On top of that, USA is an entitlement driven nation at this time. What can you give me for my vote?

This country will have to reach rockbottom before it wakes up. It's not there yet.

I didn't expect a landslide.  But alot of people did, even here.

I don't think its all about the media rejecting a candidate.  We are not that far removed from a strong GOP.  I think its more about the GOP fracturing a little and their inability to produce a viable candidate that moves the people.  Someone with charisma, resolve and leadership.  The media is a giant whore.  Whores work for money, so does the media.  Serve up a a good candidate that the people like and the media has no choice.  Serve up, what they did last election, and we get Hillary or the Jimmy Carter equivalent.   

Dos Equis

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #69 on: March 03, 2014, 12:35:10 PM »
The guy got re-elected.  As much as i hate him, it says more of the lack of leadership coming from the only party that was capable of winning it in an election that should have been a landslide.

I don't think a landslide was realistic given the solid partisan voting bloc any Democrat (or Republican) has.  Plus the media gave him a lot of cover.  They cooked the unemployment numbers right before the election.  The smear campaign painting Romney as some kind of mafia kingpin hiding money in offshore accounts and not paying taxes, from the floor of the U.S. Senate no less, certainly helped Obama.  

I thought Romney was going to win, but not in a landslide.  

Still, Obama's leadership sucks.  

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #70 on: March 03, 2014, 12:35:57 PM »
O-Twink is leading us into oblivion.  Only a complete ass believed in his bs

dario73

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #71 on: March 03, 2014, 12:38:12 PM »
And before people start spouting, "oh FOX gets the most viewers" blah, blah, blah.

Two months ago Christie was tied with Clinton on many polls.

The bridge issue comes up and the libtard media spends hours EVERY DAY over something that has not been proven to be his doing. They attacked him after building him up as a possible opponent for Hillary and after showing what he was able to do in a Democratic leaning state. Yet, they turn on him as soon as they get a chance and now he is not even in the picture. In NJ his approval went from 70% to 49%.

When the majority of the media, not just on TV BUT ALSO ON PRINT, takes the time and effort to destroy one candidate and protect another, you will always get the same result.

headhuntersix

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #72 on: March 03, 2014, 12:48:37 PM »
I agree O.....who's that guy on the Republican side? Cruz pisses off to many people..but is a straight shooter..Christie is a RINO...but he comes off as forceful.
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dario73

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #73 on: March 03, 2014, 01:08:54 PM »
First, getting re-elected doesn't mean you are a leader.
Bush is forever linked to stupidity and considered the worst president by libtards, YET HE WAS RE-ELECTED!! So, was he a leader?

Second, please stop downplaying the role of the media here. They can affect the outcome of a race. I just cited the Christie example, but just look at what happened with Romney and Obama. Everything was fact checked on Romney by the media. EVERYTHING. But, the media, outside of FOX, wouldn't dig into Benghazi, nor would they look further into crapcare. I still remember fat Crowley defending obama when he clearly was wrong in that debate.

Third, Romney was not the ideal conservative candidate. I do accept that. He couldn't attack crapcare because his Massachusetts plan was the model. That was a big weakness. Plus he was passive on his attacks on Obama.

I still believe, even if the GOP picks someone with "charisma", who is a conservative and not a RINO, most of the media will label her/him a racist homophobe, who wants to throw grandma off the cliff and wants to starve inner city kids by cutting entitlements. Eventhough, entitlements along with other programs need to be reduced in order to save this country financially.

But this truth is too difficult to accept right now. So, like I said, the country needs to get destroyed first by libtard economic and social stupidities before the masses return to the altar of capitalism.

dario73

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Re: Obama's Leadership
« Reply #74 on: March 03, 2014, 01:18:59 PM »
Right now. There are SO MANY problems with crapcare and with the economy.

But what is the media talking about? Most of the media, which are libtards, before Russia invaded Crimea were busy with bridgegate and hyping up Clinton.

Bash Christie, elevate Clinton and forget about how the stim bill was a failure, how crapcare is a disaster, how the economy is at the slowest growth rate ever for any "RECOVERING" economy.