The problem with Obama is there is 'the left', then there is 'the far left' and then somewhere past that there is Barak Obama.
I am disappointed with both candidates, even more so after watching the debate last night.
How's about we ignore the questions, and the other side and spit out pre-planned soundbytes. Because, save one occasion with McCain, that is exactly what they both did.
Made a few guys here at work happy when Senator McCain took the question from a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer to which he said "Everything I ever learned about leadership came from a Navy Chief"
I liked that. Also the lines about reducing our reliance on foreign oil irks me as it is all about the middle east when in fact the number 1 supplier of oil to the US is Canada!!!! Then Saudi Arabi, then Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria!
Crude Oil and Total Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries
We need to do better with our cars, and offering Hybrids like today is completely useless as they are marketed as the top-of-the-line model in the ranges and normally prices them out of the majority of the population, in addition to them taking about 5-8 years to make financial sense in recouping the premium that you originally paid.
Anyway, no to Obama, and frankly no to McCain.
interesting that you would say obama is far left, I would honestly prefer that he was a little bit more liberal.
US Presidential Election 2008
as you can see from that, obama isn't really all that far to the left. he wants to cut taxes for 95% of americans (i guess you could argue that more heavily graduated taxes are liberal), which i'd say falls under conservative principles of less government, he doesn't support gay marriage, and in terms of foreign policy, he's already said that he's willing to attack strategic targets in the waziristan region of pakistan if the government doesn't deal with terrorists there.
i largely agree with the graph there, i think that kucinich really is the one of the last liberals out there, just because a true liberal could never really get into the senate. my dot on that graph fell relatively close to kucinich's too btw, if you guys are curious take the quiz for yourselves
back to the original question, i really don't like too many of the past presidents. ronald reagan, well aside from the fact that the trickle down theory is simply elitist bullshit, things like the nicaraguan contra affair leave me with a sour taste in my mouth.
other presidents who for the most part were great have some small details that bothered me
Dwight Eisenhower: despite being relatively conservative, i thought ike was a pretty good leader, and i think if we'd taken his warnings about the military-industrial complex more seriously, the country would be better off today. however, he authorized the coup on Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh (because he wanted to nationalize the iranian oil industry, which contradicted britain's oil interests). that coup put the shah back in place, who was an ineffectual leader, and eventually lead to the ayatollah taking over, which of course are the roots of the current Iranian government.
FDR: Loved the new deal programs (which i'm sure make tx bill's skin crawl), but japanese internment camps just cannot be ignored. plus, there is a great deal of evidence to show that he intentionally antagonized the japanese and ignored the vulnerability of pearl harbor to give the US justification to enter the war.
Clinton: great president as well, but he still mismanaged the bombing of kosovo, created NAFTA (Tx i'd be curious to see your view on Nafta, because that issue really doesn't follow party lines) which destroyed the primarily agricultural mexican economy and concentrated it in industrial centers, which is why so many people need work and have to go elsewhere. also while TANF increased the amount of working poor, I still think the passage of that bill hurt a lot of poor families, who because of market forces simply weren't able to find work. it also made practices such as employer exploitation much more common.
JFK: simply put he was too conservative for my taste. I understand that it was the political climate at the time, but his dealings with communism bordered on McCarthyism which i don't appreciate, and i don't agree with some of his actions relating to latin american communism. also i don't know too much about his economic policies, but from what i understand he was relatively conservative there (Tx you can check me on that, you probably know more about it)
When the wife catches me out I try Nixons line "Im no crook "it never works for me either
