Obama's personal appeal

Ian C

This is a very good example of why he will prove incoherent once he and those who voted for him realise the inherent conflicts that exist within his 'liberal' instincts.

That he is personable is not in doubt, but so was Dubya - he just couldn't speak so could not be understood.

But to have a clear understanding of one of today's problems, such as he makes clear in this example and at the same time to be in hoc to the unions, especiallly the teaching unions, is simply unsustainable. Just one example, many more will follow.

mac

" . . . what it means to have graduated from a two-year college or a four-year college is not always as clear as it was several years ago.”

Well, it's clear what would help here. Just as the Colossus of Fife explained economics to the tyro President, BO needs a few pointers on edukashun from the all-knowing Mr Balls. That'd do it.

Conservative Cabbie

I'd be more willing to accept his conservatism on education if one of his first acts wasn't failing to support the successful DC school voucher program. You're not a conservative when you bow to the pressures from the teachers unions.

It's early days on family policy - but again, he killed off Clinton's welfare reforms. Hardly a conservative action and hardly family friendly.

I'm not going to judge him entirely, it's too early, but so far, he has only shown himself to be extremely liberal. A McGovernite rather than a Clinton/Blairite.

Verity

Ian C - I don't know that anyone couldn't understand Bush. He came out with a lot of amusing malapropisms, but his meaning was always perfectly clear. With a grandfather who had been a senator and a father who had been the head of the CIA, then Vice President, then President of the United States, I would say President George W grasped anything he essayed to grasp. He didn't get a degree from Harvard and a Master's from Yale (it may have been the other way round) by being dim. He didn't succeed in the rough and tumble of the Texas oil industry by being slow of wit, either, let me assure you. I'm sick of this lefty myth about President Bush.

No further Islamic attacks on the United States happened during his watch. (You don't get to be a pilot landing jets on aircraft carriers by being slow of wit, either.)

THX1138

"W'" was a huge failure and the fall out from his Presidency will keep the GOP out of the Whitehouse for a generation and his Grandfather Prescott Bush was a Traitor

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen.

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

porkbelly

Obama's reassuring, reasonable manner has always been his trump card. Even when he is promoting the most radical leftist presidential agenda the United States has ever seen his method of presentation, so professorial and assured (as countless commentators assure us) belies the content of his message. And it is true that he has a more sophisticated, nuanced perspective on the failures of doctrinaire liberalism in times past - he has spoken out for judging school teachers on their merit rather than seniority, for example.
But there remains the core of his program: accumulate vast unchecked power to himself and the government by extension, regulate and interfere with ordinary peoples lives, tax the air they breathe and the ground they walk on. The message is well-delivered but oh-so-familiar. It is the same path trodden by NuLabour and the results will be the same as well.
And thank you, THX, for the bug-eyed conspiracy theory of the day. But surely it would be an injustice to leave Joe Kennedy off your roster of Hitler sympathizers?

seb

How fitting that on the day when 'Sir' Jim Rose urges schools to make better use of computers [by chucking them out, perhaps?], Obama reminds us of the importance of being able to write. 'Sir' Jim's reforms also call for better teaching of speaking and listening skills, as though children arrive at school mute and deaf. Well done! Learning how to simultaneously walk and chew gum will soon be added to the menu of anile crap that our self-regarding progressive school system 'facilitates'.

THX1138

Why don't we let the America people speak! 50% now think that the country is going in the right direction up a massive 31% since "W" shuffled off and Obama has starospheric favorable ratings of around 65% too. The GOP is in undignified mess with it's sane members jumping ship, just leaving an ugly rump of angry white men & Christian fundamentalist zealots in the South & Alaska . As I commented elsewhere the Republicans no longer have a member of Congress in New England.

porkbelly listen to the BBC Radio 4 prog before your right wing media trained Pavlovian responses kick in, it's all well documented Prescott Bush was a Traitor.

John Lea

THX1138: What utter drivle you talk.

p.s. very tedious when people hide behind silly pseudoynms.

Charlie

Obama taking on the left wing state school teaching unions will be interesting. Is he prepared and willing for such a fight? How many in his cabinet are willing to take on such a fight?

Hereford

Seb: I really hate to stand up for anything that is a product of this government and its instruments, but Rose is right. Children from poorer backgrounds learn a much lower level of vocabulary, pre-school. This is pricipally because they hear a much lower number of words spoken in their homes. Thus when they begin school they are of a lower capability of self expression than their counterparts from more wealthy backgrounds.

The programme Rose is advocating is intended to increase the vocabulary of these pupils. Incidentally verbal vocabulary extends into written communication. You can bet your life that O's nan had a good verbal vocabulary which enhanced her skills in writing.

What I fear though is that in implementing this initiative, many teachers will operate in a way which drags the kids with higher vocabularies down rather than lifting the lower vocabulary kids up.

To not do this, there would have to be selective teaching where kids who already possess higher vocabularies would be exempt from the lessons, until the others had caught up. That would go against the leftist social engineering dogma that infests the teaching profession. As a consequence there will be an insistence that all are treated the same. Result - no improvement where it is needed and probably a reduction in capability in those who are already more articulate.

It was ever thus with teaching...

TrevorsDen

Thanks THX for showing us how bonkers you are.

The New York Times (at the time) characterised it as a "gigantic hoax" a "bald and unconvincing narrative."

General Douglas MacArthur, alleged to be the back-up leader of the 'revolution', called it "the best laugh story of the year."

Verity

You all know, when you see tHX's silly, attention seeking nom de blog that the accompanying post will be self-seeking drivel, so why read it?

THX1138

TrevorsDen -Oh really I suggest that you read up on Prescott Bush Directorship of The Union Banking Corporation and it's links to Nazi Germany.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

The documents are all in the public domain in the US National Archive and listen to the Radio 4 Prog before you pass judgment.

David

"believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."

Their country did, though, under FDR. Huge public works, pioneer corps for young people.

And W had nothing to do with his grandfather. It's like claiming all Germans are Nazis now because of what their grandparents did.

Hayward Maberley

THX1138,
Yes you left Joseph Kennedy hoever let me add to the list, Henry Ford who thought that Hitler was doing a good job and Thomas Watson of IBM, whose machines help the trains run on time for the Holocaust. In fact most of the ruling/upper class in Britain also thought he was doing a good job. And what was that good job? Suppressing dissent, trade unions and dealing with the "Reds" and Jews by shipping them off to camps. There is evidence to say that the ex-king, the Prince of Wales, would have been quite happy to have been a Gauleiter of Britain.

Frank P

An essential idiosyncrasy of any proficient con man is likeability. Obama has it in spades, which is why, with a little help from a variety of ideological and crooked parasitical 'associates' he was able to con his way right into the White House. And also, like all good conmen, he is able to immediately reinvent himself when caught out on details and restart the con over and over. Much as I love the US and its folks, the most generous and liberated people on earth, they also seem at times the most credulous. But - when they eventually discover, en masse, that they have been had, they are ruthless in their punishments. When and how they will deal with Obama's comeuppance remains to be seen. May it been soon and cataclysmic. I suspect that the pandemic of Obamaism could potentially be more catastrophic for us all than Mexican pig-'flu.

JONNY

Of course there's nothing arounjd you wou;d dignify with the word Opposition.
Now that Sarah Draper's turned out to be a dismembered caribou flapping its wings on the melting Alaskan permafrost.

David the Tory

At last! some sense from Verity, and some truly moronic posts from THX1138(what the hell is the signifance of that?) Anyone who believes that the BBC is to be trusted about ANYTHING to do with politics in general and American politics in particular needs committing to a mental institution. NOTHING Obama says can be taken at face value - he has broken so many campaign promises, thrown so many people "under the bus", reversed so many statements that the current joke on the American blogs is that all his statements have a sell by date on them! He is a pupil of the Saul Alinsky school which states (among many other things), that you should always say what your present audience wants to hear. Also, if you consider that Specre(sic) is one of the GOP's saner members, then if I were you, I'd book that bed in Colney Hatch right away. Moron!

AD

Verity says the following:

"He didn't succeed in the rough and tumble of the Texas oil industry by being slow of wit, either, let me assure you."

Bush was a failure as a business man by any measure. He failed in oil and he ran the Texas Rangers into the ground.

"He didn't get a degree from Harvard and a Master's from Yale (it may have been the other way round) by being dim."

Legacy admission for children of big-time donors and alumni. Happens all the time - especially at the Ivys.

"(You don't get to be a pilot landing jets on aircraft carriers by being slow of wit, either.)"

Bush flew fighters for the Air National Guard. No carriers there. If he was a naval aviator, he might have had the opportunity, but not as an air (force) national guardsman.

So, really you have no idea what you're talking about. Don't let that stop you, though! Keep drinking the FoxNooz kool-aid, pal.

AD

Verity says the following:

"He didn't succeed in the rough and tumble of the Texas oil industry by being slow of wit, either, let me assure you."

Bush was a failure as a business man by any measure. He failed in oil and he ran the Texas Rangers into the ground.

"He didn't get a degree from Harvard and a Master's from Yale (it may have been the other way round) by being dim."

Legacy admission for children of big-time donors and alumni. Happens all the time - especially at the Ivys.

"(You don't get to be a pilot landing jets on aircraft carriers by being slow of wit, either.)"

Bush flew fighters for the Air National Guard. No carriers there. If he was a naval aviator, he might have had the opportunity, but not as an air (force) national guardsman.

So, really you have no idea what you're talking about. Don't let that stop you, though! Keep drinking the FoxNooz kool-aid, pal.

Verity

AD - Look, pal, if legacy admissions are so common, why has Al Gore only got one lowly little Bachelor's? His grandfather was richer than Bush's grandfather. Why did Bush stay on to get two degrees? It wasn't as if he wouldn't be able to find work.

In addition, pal, I saw a film of President Bush landing a plane on an aircraft carrier during the Gulf War. Do you think they fly military jets with slower engines in the Reserves? Or that they're attached by trainer reins to big, butch jets?

He was a failure in the oil industry, eh? That must be how his family gathered all those shares in Halliburton, so beloved of aggressive twerpy lefties such as yourself, pal.

Also, pal, you don't get elected to be governor of a giant state like Texas for two consecutive terms (the first one ever) unless the voters think you are doing something right. One of the things he did right, pal, was sign a bill to carry concealed. President Bush is on our team, not yours. Scat!

(If you're an American and new to the British blog scene, may I recommend The Guardian's Comment is Free, where you can slither around among your own kind?)

AD

AD - Look, pal, if legacy admissions are so common, why has Al Gore only got one lowly little Bachelor's? His grandfather was richer than Bush's grandfather. Why did Bush stay on to get two degrees? It wasn't as if he wouldn't be able to find work.

http://www.longviewinstitute.org/research/karabel/legacies

"In addition, pal, I saw a film of President Bush landing a plane on an aircraft carrier during the Gulf War. Do you think they fly military jets with slower engines in the Reserves? Or that they're attached by trainer reins to big, butch jets?"

you saw film of bush landing in a plane on a carrier. bush did not land the plane himself. bush is a fighter pilot, i will not argue this. he was an air force pilot, however. they do not get trained to land on carriers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished: The S-3 that served as "Navy One" was retired from service and placed on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida on July 17, 2003. The museum makes it clear that President Bush was a passenger—not the pilot—of the plane.[5] Unlike his father, who was a Navy pilot, George W. Bush was never trained to land on a carrier.

"He was a failure in the oil industry, eh? That must be how his family gathered all those shares in Halliburton, so beloved of aggressive twerpy lefties such as yourself, pal."

Arbusto, an oil exploration company, lost money, but it got considerable investments (nearly $5 million) because even losing oil investments were useful as tax shelters.
Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. bought out Arbusto in 1984 and hired Mr. Bush to run the company's oil interests in Midland, Texas. The oil business collapsed as oil prices plummeted by 1986, and Spectrum 7 Energy was near failure.
Harken Energy acquired Mr. Bush's Spectrum 7 Energy shares, and he got Harken shares, a directorship, and a consulting arrangement in return. Harken, under Bush, brought in Saudi real estate tycoon Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh as a board member and a major investor. Over the next few years, Harken would turn out to have links to: Saudi money, CIA-connected Filipinos, the Harvard Endowment, the emir of Bahrain, and the shadowy Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
A 1991 internal SEC document suggested George W. Bush violated federal securities law at least 4 times in the late 1980s and early 1990s in selling Harken stock while serving as a director of Harken. This is essentially the same kind of activity that Martha Stewart is going to prison over. Except at the time of the investigation, Mr. Bush's father was president and the case was quietly dropped.

"Also, pal, you don't get elected to be governor of a giant state like Texas for two consecutive terms (the first one ever) unless the voters think you are doing something right. One of the things he did right, pal, was sign a bill to carry concealed. President Bush is on our team, not yours. Scat!"

there are scores of poor governors from both sides of the aisle. this fact proves nothing to me.

"(If you're an American and new to the British blog scene, may I recommend The Guardian's Comment is Free, where you can slither around among your own kind?)"

nah, i think i'll stay here.

sarasota

So this quote from the New York Times Magazine is supposed to reveal Obama's "conservative instincts"? The fact that he's willing to acknowledge (albeit tacitly) that leftist policies like the ones he espouses have destroyed the American educational system? Obama has no conservative instincts on anything at all. He is not a "committed liberal," which would be bad enough; he is a committed leftist. Conservative instincts on family policy? The man who said he didn't want his daughter to be "punished with a baby"? And as far as same-sex marriage is concerned, the only reason Obama opposes it--the ONLY reason--is that the black electorate is solidly against it, and Obama is a cynical political opportunist. Give us a break.