Politics Obama - Actually doing a good job?

When Sandy hit NY/NJ it was not a hurricane, Katrina hit as a cat 3 even at second landfall.
1,800 deaths Katrina compared to 200 for Sandy.
1.2 million housing units destroyed/severely damaged Katrina compared to about 300,000 for Sandy.
Insured losses about $50b Katrina compared to about $20 for Sandy (with no adjustment for higher costs in NY/NJ).
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

You are correct about hyperbole.

 

The words of denial: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

 

I prefer honesty. Photo ops do not impress me. Katrina and the response was not a Bush mistake. Far too many people suffered and died because local officials failed to move people out of harms way.

Do you mean the type of integrity where a leaders looks a human being in the eye in a time of crisis and say he will personally follow up on something and does not? A year after Sandy, there is still large sums of money available but not distributed to those who need it. Did you see any of the one year anniversary reports on Sandy? Does it make you proud? what did we really learn from Katrina? Is the lesson, that all we need are pictures of Obama and Christy holding hands while walking on the beach? Style wins?

What did you want the President to do...send in the national guard prior to the storm and force people to leave??? All the buses shown in the famous photo, did you want him to drive the buses? The empty FEMA trailers, they were available for use. Many attribute responsibilities of local officials with responsibilities of the President.

 

The biggest issue with FEMA under Bush was the appointment of political cronies rather than emergency response professions at the top and slashing the budget (along with the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers) and downgrading the agency mission away from preparedness/response/recovery) to only response/recovery....all in the name of "smaller government"

And this is how smaller government impacted the people of Louisiana (and the Gulf Coast)

But that is all water under the bridge (or over the levees) now.

 

That "most admired" poll is a venerable piece of bullshit -- a "fill in the blank" poll. The results are almost purely a function of how famous and visible people are.

The incumbent president, no matter who, usually gets the #1 spot, by getting something like 12% or 15% of the vote. There is a huge long tail of thousands of public figures and celebrities who get fractions of 1%.

 

Time will tell. I'm glad he never escalated any of the Wars.
And God Bless Him. We have had much worst before President Obama.

 

With the polls, I doubt that Obama (or any Democrat) would ever get above a 60% approval rating, even if he cured cancer and discovered cold fusion.

 

Well, yeah. Cold fusion would destroy the oil companies; and a cure for cancer would be deadly for the hospice care and funeral planning sectors. The job losses would be huge.

When you're president, it's better to leave the science to the scientists, and let them take the blame for whatever advances they come up with.

 

Bush's approval rating was above 60% in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq (down from 90% immediately after 9/11)

Moral of the story? It is better to lie to the American people about a non existent imminent threat from a foreign country than about losing your health plan.

 

If I was President there is no way I would be on vacation during the first few weeks, even months of the roll-out of the ACA. I would not even let members of my administration take vacation. And I certainly would not be on a golf course. The President should be directing the action until the ACA gets nearly perfect, not to mention his other priorities. He should be meeting with citizens, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, insurance companies, state officials getting a first hand account of what the issues are and directing resources to address the problems. He should lead. President Obama has too frequently used the excuse that he was not aware - a very lame excuse - lack of leadership.

Has he checked out?
Doesn't he have someone on his staff with the courage to tell him how bad the optics are that he is on vacation doing golf photo ops?

He is only going to be President for 8 years - it is a 24/7 job and should have his 100% focus. His wife and family need to understand this - the Holidays at the WH wouldn't be that bad anyway - they will have plenty of time starting in 2017.

 

Bush spent over 1,000 days on vacation...nearly 1/3 of his presidency.

Much if it during the Iraq War when US servicemen and women were dying every day. Should he have stayed in the White House and personally directed the war every day.

Or maybe Obama can just stand in front of a hospital and say "Mission Accomplished" now that the ACA is in effect.