Out of depth Obama vs. out of touch Republicans

[lonewolf]

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Poll identifies serious problems for president


Out of depth Obama vs. out of touch Republicans
8:36 p.m. CDT July 10, 2014

Michael Gerson

WASHINGTON – The headline — "Poll: Obama Worst President Since World War II" — was both provocative and misleading. The Quinnipiac survey did, indeed, place President Obama at the top of the worst since FDR. But this was largely a measure of partisan concentration. Republicans were united in their unfavorable historical judgment of Obama. Democrats divided their votes (and would insist, I'd imagine, that they have more options to choose from).

We already know that Obama is a highly polarizing figure. But beneath the headline, the poll identified serious problems for the president. Fifty-four percent of respondents said the Obama administration is "not competent running the government." (Shout-out to HealthCare.gov.) A majority believe the president does not have "strong leadership qualities."

Obama is solidifying a perception that he is out of his depth. Once made, such an impression is difficult to unmake.

Public confidence that government generally does the right thing is near an all-time low. In a recent Gallup poll, 79 percent of Americans agreed that corruption is "widespread throughout the government" — up from 59 percent in 2006.

Obama is left with a job approval rating — in the low to mid-40s — that is about the same as when his party lost 63 House seats during the 2010 midterm elections. On the stump, his strategy is a ferocious peevishness. Republicans "don't do anything except block me and call me names" — an accusation in the best rhetorical tradition of school yards everywhere.

On his executive orders, Obama challenges the House speaker: "So sue me." As a former speechwriter, I'd advise greater care in the choice of catchphrases. "So sue me" sounds like the guy who steals your parking space and taunts you afterward. Petulance does not signal strength.

On policy issues, Obama has few places to turn. Obamacare is enduringly controversial. The IRS and Veterans Affairs scandals continue to unfold. Foreign policy hardly offers a refuge.

Obama therefore turns to the two issues that Democrats keep in their back pocket, confident that broad social currents are running in their favor: immigration and contraception. In the long run, the political analysis that informs this strategy is correct. The American electorate is becoming more demographically diverse and more culturally liberal. When it comes to Hispanic voters, younger voters and single voters, Republicans can seem out of touch (because they mostly are).

So the midterm contest sets up: "Out of his depth" vs. "Out of touch."

It is hard to imagine that the president's use of cultural wedge issues will have much effect in battleground Senate races, conducted (this time around) mainly in red states. But even if it does — even if a deep blue appeal moves voters substantially — a historical reputation will be set.

"I don't want to pit red America against blue America," Obama once said. Now he organizes the sorting of America between red and blue. Best president or worst, he has left a nation more divided.

Michael Gerson's email address is [email protected].

http://www.news-leader.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/07/10/depth-obama-vs-touch-republicans/12506933/

[jah_yout]

these joke articles are amusing...
it is not that the country is more divided...it's that a half "black" president brought out the latent hatred that was there but not as easy to see before...
what could be more divisive than the revolutionary war, where many blacks opted to fight on the side of britain because ameriKKKa refused to recognize them as full human beings..is it more divided than the war of 1812 when the same thing happened?
how about the civil war when one half of the country rebelled, seceded & took up arms against ameriKKKa for daring to tell them that they could not keep black people as farm animals;
how about the so-called world wars 1 & 2 when criminal racist US presidents still kept the armed forces segregated...is it more divided now than then?

[lonewolf]

these joke articles are amusing...
it is not that the country is more divided...it's that a half "black" president brought out the latent hatred that was there but not as easy to see before...
what could be more divisive than the revolutionary war, where many blacks opted to fight on the side of britain because ameriKKKa refused to recognize them as full human beings..is it more divided than the war of 1812 when the same thing happened?
how about the civil war when one half of the country rebelled, seceded & took up arms against ameriKKKa for daring to tell them that they could not keep black people as farm animals;
how about the so-called world wars 1 & 2 when criminal racist US presidents still kept the armed forces segregated...is it more divided now than then?

jah_yout,

You say the glass is half empty. I say the glass is half full.

it is not that the country is more divided...it's that a half "black" president brought out the latent hatred that was there but not as easy to see before...

I say BS! George Bush had more hatred spewed at him than any other president that I can remember. And a lot of it came from people like me and I voted for that idiot. Hope and broken promises can bring resentment.

Hell, they tried to impeach Clinton. Obama is being treated no different than any other president.

And, Obama ,a half black man was elected by a US population that still has a majority of white voters.

Where else in the free world would a black man get elected to lead where the majority population is white?

Only in the USA. There are a lot of things wrong with the US, but there are a lot of things that are right.

how about the civil war when one half of the country rebelled, seceded & took up arms against ameriKKKa for daring to tell them that they could not keep black people as farm animals

And YOU SEE THAT AS SOMETHING BAD!?! THAT A WHOLE COUNTRY ALMOST DESTROYED ITSELF AND DISOLVED OVER SLAVERY!?!

Again, however tragic, I see CHARACTER and RIGHTOUSNESS. I see GREATNESS IN THAT!

how about the so-called world wars 1 & 2 when criminal racist US presidents still kept the armed forces segregated...is it more divided now than then?[/

What's more divided? The armed forces are not segregated now. Why do you keep dwelling in the past and pick the scabs to keep the sores open? You are stuck in the past. You are a slave to past events. You did not exist then, neither did I nor did any other person alive today. I see things moving forward not regressing...Is it perfect? Of course not...

You speak of all this, but there are black people being sold into slavery right now. Slavery is alive and well in Africa as we speak, but of course it's conveniently ignored. Islamic Sudan is where Gregory Kane(Sun Columnist) and Gilbert Lewthwaite(Sun Reporter) bought a slave and released him. It was published as a three part series in the Baltimore Sun that was nominated for a pulitzer some years ago. Excellent read....that left LOUIS FARAKKKHAN with egg on his face.

Something of Gregory Kane below that resonates...

In 1997, Kane was nominated along with Baltimore Sun reporter Gilbert Lewthwaite for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism for a three-part series about slavery in Sudan.[2] Both men won the Overseas Press Club award for best reporting on human rights and an award from the National Association of Black Journalists for the series.[2]

Debate on slavery in Sudan splits between reality, denial
July 11, 2001|By Gregory Kane
SO THERE I WAS, sitting in Howard University's Blackburn Center about a week before America's Independence Day celebration. The occasion was a debate on the subject "Does slavery exist in the Sudan?"

Muslim after Muslim filed into the meeting hall, which was soon packed. I glanced out the window and still more came up the walk. I soon felt a disturbing George Armstrong Custer feeling come over me

The debate had six panelists -- three of whom believe slavery exists in Sudan and three who are living in denial -- who each delivered a five-minute statement. One of those on the "slavery does exist" side was Walter Fauntroy, a minister and former District of Columbia congressman. Fauntroy recently visited Sudan and returned to the United States denouncing slavery there. But before the Muslim crowd, he chumped out completely.

"The issue in Sudan is about oil," Fauntroy trumpeted. He went on to talk about nebulous evil forces who sought to benefit from Sudan's oil. Not once did he mention Sudan and slavery in the same breath or give details of his trip there.

Anthony Swanston, a local Caribbean-American activist, was on Fauntroy's team. He did much better, saying he believed slavery exists in Sudan based on reports from several human rights organizations.

Akwei Malwal, a Dinka from Bahr al-Ghazal province in southern Sudan, was the most convincing.

"Slavery has been in Sudan for years -- centuries actually," Malwal told the crowd. "The British found Arabs enslaving blacks." He accused the Sudanese government of ethnic cleansing, of "chasing away southerners from villages or capturing them. Once you are captured, you are enslaved."

Malwal was the only one who called the 18-year-old north/south civil war in the Sudan religious in nature.

"In 1989, this government declared a jihad [holy war] on the Africans," Malwal said. "What kind of government declares war on its own citizens?"

Said al-Kati, who represented the Sudanese embassy, took the contrary view.

"This never started as an issue of religion, but some people are turning it into an issue of religion," al-Kati said. "People are trying to demonize the people of Sudan -- a proud people. Slavery is forbidden in our religion. In our country, it is not practiced."

Indeed it is not. Since the 1820s, when Arabs first started raiding southern Sudan for slaves, slavery has not been practiced in that country. It's been perfected. But you couldn't convince Hodari Abdul Ali of that. He was on the panel and sided with al-Kati.

"As a Muslim of African-American descent," Ali began, "I felt offended by the lies and slander against Islam and the Sudan."

Well, that figures. Almost all African-Americans, by racial requirement, are compelled to be offended by something. Ali and al-Kati were joined by Muhammad Majied, a Sudanese Muslim imam living in Washington, in defending the Sudanese government. After each one spoke, the Muslims assembled in the room encouraged them with cheers, applause and shouts of "Allahu Akbar," which means "Allah is the greatest."

Al-Kati had just said the struggle in Sudan wasn't religious, but the cries of "Allahu Akbar" would have a distinctly religious overtone with most folks
The fervor of the Muslims -- Arabs and their African-American allies oblivious to the history of Arab enslavement of blacks -- did not die after the speeches. When the moderator -- of the Washington group Women's Wing Organization -- called for a question-and-answer period, the Muslims and their supporters showed they don't know the difference between a question and a rant.

One of the first up was an African-American woman who described herself as a Pan-Africanist. She bellowed that the USA was "the United Snakes of America" and scoffed at notions of slavery in Sudan.

"We have slavery right here in D. C.," she huffed. "We can't vote."

A bearded fool followed her and continued the theme: Slavery exists right here in Washington.

If you put a horse under each of these idiots they could lead a cavalry charge in the battle against common sense. Washington residents can, in fact, vote.

That's why they were able to elect a crackhead as mayor. That's why in every presidential election D.C. voters cast their ballots for whatever Democratic hack is seeking the nation's highest office. Residents don't vote for a U.S. senator or a voting member of the House of Representatives, but if the reasoning powers of the average Washingtonian are anything like those of the first two questioners, perhaps that's for the best.

But the two dolts might have performed a service. They illustrated, more than anything, why American Negroes -- who think they're African-Americans -- should stay out of African affairs.

It's always "me, me, me" with American Negroes. It's always about our suffering and misery, which we think reduces the suffering and misery of all others to insignificance. The truth is, the problems American Negroes face pale in comparison to the death, degradation and destruction occurring daily in southern Sudan.

Why, some critics of slavery in Sudan have wondered, don't more African-Americans speak out about what's going on there?

The best answer? Because the southern Sudanese have suffered enough. Anything African-Americans add would make it worse.

[jah_yout]

What's more divided? The armed forces are not segregated now. Why do you keep dwelling in the past and pick the scabs to keep the sores open?

so that their false narratives don't go unchallenged...the claim that the country has never been more divided than now is completely false

You are stuck in the past. You are a slave to past events. You did not exist then, neither did I nor did any other person alive today. I see things moving forward not regressing...Is it perfect? Of course not...

the past is never dead...it is how we got to where we are now...it is a check on those who wish to paint a false picture of what happened in the past---like michelle balkman claiming the founding father fought to end slavery...without historical record, absurd statements like that would go unchallenged & distort reality...

You speak of all this, but there are black people being sold into slavery right now. Slavery is alive and well in Africa as we speak, but of course it's conveniently ignored. Islamic Sudan is where Gregory Kane(Sun Columnist) and Gilbert Lewthwaite(Sun Reporter) bought a slave and released him. It was published as a three part series in the Baltimore Sun that was nominated for a pulitzer some years ago. Excellent read....that left LOUIS FARAKKKHAN with egg on his face.

that type of slavery is a different thing with different dynamics & pretty much has nothing to do with the US and its own history of racial slavery & post-slavery jim-crow segregation, economic warfare & terrorism...
as far as islamic extremism in africa---it is also a scourge---farakkhan is a whole nother topic