Obama Memos Reveal Troubles With Post-Partisan Presidency

The New Yorker:

On a frigid January evening in 2009, a week before his Inauguration, Barack Obama had dinner at the home of George Will, the Washington Post columnist, who had assembled a number of right-leaning journalists to meet the President-elect.

Read the whole story: The New Yorker

 

 

Comments

[shothot]

10:55 PM on 01/23/2012

Like Jack Johnson and Jackie Robinson, as the first black president, it should have been presumed......
"there would be blood".

[WTH 2012]

01:15 AM on 01/24/2012

Lol, racebaitfail... 83% approval rating when he began.

[shothot]

01:43 AM on 01/24/2012

Apparently you're historically illiterate and desire to present ANYTHING regarding the conversation of race as racebating.
Continue with your stupidity. This kind of ignorance and stupidity is unacceptable to the broader world. Stay home.

[TommyMcCarthy]

08:53 PM on 01/23/2012

Stellar in-depth article....literate and and engaging

It is REQUIRED READING

Both for those who think The President is a corporate shill and a sell-out....who ran the biggest "bait and switch" in history on the electorate.

And also those that think he is a righteous angel.....his universally beneficient impulses thwarted by evil agents of the awful status quo.

Each camp will find affirmation of their pre-existing beliefs about the President...and the man.
I myself have subscribed to elements of both views on occasion.

But the portrait that emerges is one I find more or less accurate.
Hubris, and confidence (even OVERconfidence) in one's vision are more or less prerequisites to an undertaking of such ...well...AUDACITY (the very word!).

But there was no question there would be a learning curve...and mistakes would have been made...no matter WHO assumed office in Jan. '09.

There is simply no denying that the new President faced the most dire economic situation since Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration ....and, at the SAME TIME

He faced the most virulent and determined political opposition since Abraham Lincoln could look across the Potomac...and see the sun flash off the bayonets of a hostile army...comitted to HIS (and the country's) destruction.... among the green Virginia hills.

It's hard not to notice that the more virulent anti-Obamaites are often such.... because they share the view of those long-ago Confederate secessionists regarding the President's skin color.

Regards
tm

[wheresthepositivity]

08:57 PM on 01/23/2012

fanned, TommyMcCarthy

[wonketteRAWKS]

08:28 PM on 01/23/2012

The New Yorker?

[Galene Stockwell]

08:34 PM on 01/23/2012

YOUR QUESTION ??????????

[jangoodell]

08:21 PM on 01/23/2012

What prez has willingly shown his college grades?

[shankapotomus]

08:36 PM on 01/23/2012

OK if you say so.

[its miller time]

09:28 PM on 01/23/2012

How would this change your opinion about Obama?

[shothot]

12:04 AM on 01/24/2012

There's larceny in the heart of a person who ask for President Obama's grades....given he was in the top 10% of his Havard class. Dummies don't become President of the Harvard Law Review.
Comments as such speak to a toxic mindset

[QUO-VADIS]

07:58 PM on 01/23/2012

Headline
Never-Before-Seen Obama Memos Published

How about
Never-Before-Seen Obama College grades.

[its miller time]

09:30 PM on 01/23/2012

If it isn't one thing it's another with you guys...YAWN!

[nicothebaker]

10:18 PM on 01/23/2012

You'll see his college grades appear about the same time a former girlfriend surfaces. Never. This guy skirted around any scrutiny that is being given the GOP candidates.

[nicothebaker]

07:47 PM on 01/23/2012

He has genuinely earned the title of Food Stamps President.

[frommars]

08:19 PM on 01/23/2012

No, he genuinely inherited an economy that has forced many, especially unemployed to try and feed their families. I am guessing you want for nothing except to "make Pres Obama a 1 term President" You are a good little ri-ght -wing-her

[shothot]

12:06 AM on 01/24/2012

You should explain right winger. he/she doesn't understand such terms, even when they are one.

[wonketteRAWKS]

08:25 PM on 01/23/2012

I actually saw a man today having work done for an extension on his house. He's also collecting food stamps. People are gaming the system. There are truly those out there that are in desperate need of food stamps, and then there are people.....

[shankapotomus]

08:41 PM on 01/23/2012

I love it when they pay for their food with that gov card and them drive away in a 50k automobile, i see it all the time.

[shankapotomus]

08:42 PM on 01/23/2012

The felfare queens are alive and well.

[its miller time]

09:34 PM on 01/23/2012

You are running a very close first place for the most asi=nine comment of the evening.

[shothot]

10:46 PM on 01/23/2012

You are a prime example of incompetence.

[Koiquoe]

07:19 PM on 01/23/2012

From the Andrew Sullivan article last week, then this one now, I am becoming very skeptical of the Obama's communications team. These are only two articles, and they have shed such immense clarity on the tremendous efforts of this president on behalf of the country. Where have the communications team been? Why are they not using their resources to tell this story?
As intransigent as republicants are, I even think this article might even change some of their minds into supporting the president. It shows very clearly how they are being lied to by Fox News.

[Mark Andre]

07:33 PM on 01/23/2012

Test bed, test run if you will, Koique if enough people are foolish enough to bite then you roll it out and start reeling them in!!

[MarinafromMaine]

07:47 PM on 01/23/2012

I agree completely. They should have hit back hard on the whole "Death Panel" charge and exposed it for the propaganda that it was- maybe his health care legislation would have passed a lot more quickly and with a public option if they had.

I hope they see this piece and use the talking points, but I'm not hopeful. His communication staff needs to be a lot tougher and clearer or he won't be re-elected regardless of how awful the Republican candidate is- Republicans are awfully good at making uninformed Americans believe complete BS.

[wheresthepositivity]

08:58 PM on 01/23/2012

Even though there are cleared, measured, rational points here, Rs would deny what is in front of their faces and discredit the source.

[shothot]

12:24 AM on 01/24/2012

Though you may not be aware, By the hair on his chinny-chin-chin, he barely passed the present healthcare reform bill. I don't iinderstand the continuous harping over the public option. it would have doomed any healthcare reform bill. that's why he took this present version. Given we, the general public don't know or get all the facts, there are moments when we should fully recognize the limitations of a president..... but also trust his judgement.
You are so right about the Repubs ability to make uninformed americans believe BS. They have schools for invading the minds of uninformed mindless.

[demimckingwoodtx]

07:13 PM on 01/23/2012

Bush the II was the worst President that ever happened in America, he made it hard for the middle-class to make a living thousands upon thousands upon hard working Americans losing their jobs, homes and dignity, more people were on food stamps under his presidency than anytime in America 14.7 million! Obama14.2 million. But he is white, and Obama is black so blame on President on Obama!

[Ashanti]

07:13 PM on 01/23/2012

Maybe someone needs to pass this article along to Mr. Kuttner, who wrote of the President's so called "mixed messages."

This may give him a little more insight into what the President has actually been dealing with.

[Ashanti]

06:57 PM on 01/23/2012

I am so thankful for this article. Some of us have been trying for the last 3 years to bring this kind of awareness to many within the President's base, who've been his harshest critics.

Over and over, I would say, "If we could walk in his shoes for just one day, we would have a much different perspective and understanding of what the President is dealing with ...," much of which we still can't conceive and probably never will.

Yet, in spite of the obstacles and the challenges that have defined his presidency, President Obama has nonetheless accomplished more in 3 years than his predecessor accomplished in two terms, including cleaning up much of the mess that his predecessor left behind to be "the next President's problem."

And he did this, not only in the face of unrelenting opposition and obstruction, both from those on the other side of the aisle as well as from those within his own congressional caucus, but also perhaps the most cynical, critical, schizophrenic and reactionary base that any President has ever had to deal with.

It's a wonder that this man is still standing, but he is ... as tall, as strong, and as confident as ever; and I for one will be standing with him, as I cast my ballot to re-elect our President in 2012.

"Let's Stay Together" ... Obama/Biden 2012

[islandleogirl]

07:59 PM on 01/23/2012

Excellent post, thank you for sharing!

Very well said.

F&F

[pikwiks]

08:32 PM on 01/23/2012

Beautiful post !!!

[WilmaJune]

06:48 PM on 01/23/2012

Poor baby must have fallen in the deep end of the pool. Now, we are supposed to feel sorry for him because he is in over his head.

[onedivasinger]

06:44 PM on 01/23/2012

Those who continue to spout the rhetoric that President Obama caused the financial collapse of this country show their complete lack of knowledge of history, how the congress works via the constitution, how financial systems work and how long it takes an economy to flat line the middle class and increase the amount of people on "food stamps" ( who by the way, the largest group on food stamps are not black people or brown people) and in homelessness/poverty. I know that works to gin up hate and misinformation, but it doesn't do anything to solve those issues. And neither will electing people who have shown you zero respect because they continue to lie to you with abandon.

[Henry Spencer]

06:38 PM on 01/23/2012

George Zornick writes at The Nation:

Obama Is on the Brink of a Settlement With the Big Banks—and Progressives Are Furious

[its miller time]

07:30 PM on 01/23/2012

In the same article......the Nation writes...so the deal is far from over...

Obama has said nothing, its all hypothetical, a feeling, assumptions, until it's confirmed by the
DOJ or White House you're blowing smoke.

[MarinafromMaine]

06:38 PM on 01/23/2012

Wow. This is probably the best analysis of the trials and tribulationallenges Obama has faced. I knew that the challenges were very serious, but not nearly to the extent that this editorial indicates is the case.

President Obama, I apologize. I've been critical of your policies. I still am, but I have a much better understanding of why you have done some of the things that have infuriated me.

Non carborundum illigitimati. I believe that you've learned that there is no appeasing the "conservatives," who from my point of view are anything but.

From now on, I'll have your back. I'm going to donate to Democratic PACs, and to your re-election.

Thank-you, NYer.