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Freedom of Dublin for The Obamas!

  • 07-02-2017 9:02am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭


    A motion has been passed to grant the Obamas the freedom of Dublin. What have the Obamas got to do with Dublin? It's crazy in my opinion and seems like nothing more than a bit of attention seeking and an excuse to twist their arm into getting them to come back over and inaugurate a few more motorway filling stations. That's not to mention that by all accounts he was quite the warmonger himself but managed to hide it all behind his big smile while pressing the detonator behind his back. A bit embarrassing really.


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,807 ✭✭✭Badly Drunk Boy


    The Trumps should be given the freedom of Leitrim.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,095 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    And then build a wall round Leitrim? Sorry Leitrim people, but sometimes there are casualties :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,633 ✭✭✭✭murpho999


    gramar wrote: »
    A motion has been passed to grant the Obamas the freedom of Dublin. What have the Obamas got to do with Dublin? It's crazy in my opinion and seems like nothing more than a bit of attention seeking and an excuse to twist their arm into getting them to come back over and inaugurate a few more motorway filling stations. That's not to mention that by all accounts he was quite the warmonger himself but managed to hide it all behind his big smile while pressing the detonator behind his back. A bit embarrassing really.

    Who is embarrassed OP? You?

    What had Nelson Mandela, JFK, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev,Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa got to do with Dublin either?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,300 ✭✭✭✭razorblunt


    Give them the Freedom of Cork, like.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭gramar


    murpho999 wrote: »
    Who is embarrassed OP? You?

    What had Nelson Mandela, JFK, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev,Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa got to do with Dublin either?

    Yes I am little and also I think it's a little embarrassing as a country.
    It reminds we of the usual fawning all over any famous people that visit our shores.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    looksee wrote: »
    And then build a wall round Leitrim? Sorry Leitrim people, but sometimes there are casualties :D

    No one will miss the 5 of them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    Forget about the blood dripping from his hands for a minute

    Do people not realise what his administration did to THIS country when we were on our knees?

    Anyone who welcomes this is a fool


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,220 ✭✭✭✭biko


    With all the hysteria over Trump Obama is getting off lightly. He did nothing of significance except his medicare work - all the wars are still raging.
    I don't see a particular reason to let him have the freedom of anything.


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 23,238 Mod ✭✭✭✭GLaDOS


    Is this better or worse than naming a petrol station after him?

    Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 664 ✭✭✭9or10


    gramar wrote: »
    A motion has been passed to grant the Obamas the freedom of Dublin. What have the Obamas got to do with Dublin? It's crazy in my opinion and seems like nothing more than a bit of attention seeking and an excuse to twist their arm into getting them to come back over and inaugurate a few more motorway filling stations.

    Ah but you can never have enough filling stations.

    Can be awful handy.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,559 ✭✭✭✭lawred2


    8 years of non stop bombing of the middle east gets you freedom of Dublin now...

    He's lucky that Trump succeeded him. He can shuffle off into the backgrounds basking in the uncritical glow of 'being better' than Trump


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,056 ✭✭✭applehunter


    Why cause he was a black president?

    Sycophants


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,021 ✭✭✭Arcade_Tryer


    gramar wrote: »
    That's not to mention that by all accounts he was quite the warmonger himself but managed to hide it all behind his big smile while pressing the detonator behind his back. A bit embarrassing really.
    What's embarrassing is people calling Obama a warmonger and bringing up drones in every discussion about him. It's the same people who incessantly rabbled on about Clinton's emails during the Presidential election. It's bull****. By all accounts, Obama was one of the most informed Presidents concerning foreign policy, spending countless hours studying intelligence briefs and acting on national intelligence advice given to him by the various agencies. This warmonger stuff is nonsense, and not even Fox News in the US come out with such crap. The most place I see it is from Trump supporters on twitter and Irish people on boards trying to sound edgy and against the grain, almost alternative you could say!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 145 ✭✭dexter_morgan


    murpho999 wrote: »
    Who is embarrassed OP? You?

    What had Nelson Mandela, JFK, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev,Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa got to do with Dublin either?

    Didn't Mother Teresa spend a few months in Dublin with the Loreto Sisters when she became a nun?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,133 ✭✭✭✭GBX


    GLaDOS wrote: »
    Is this better or worse than naming a petrol station after him?

    Just having the named petrol station will do me - its some lads personal business so he is entitled to name it what he likes. As for freedom of Dublin - give it to those who help the homeless & needy. Not those that make people homeless or dead from drones strikes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,554 ✭✭✭valoren


    It's not a question of his politics or his reputation or his charisma or his status.

    Have they nothing better to be doing.

    That's the embarrassing part.

    Lest we forget, that when he was asked to intervene when Garth Brooks pulled out of his Croker gigs, he did nothing at all!!!!!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 281 ✭✭skankkuvhima


    Forget about the blood dripping from his hands for a minute

    Do people not realise what his administration did to THIS country when we were on our knees?

    Anyone who welcomes this is a fool

    That's an excellent point. Just to remind folks
    Ireland’s Last Stand began less shambolically than you might expect. The IMF, which believes that lenders should pay for their stupidity before it has to reach into its pocket, presented the Irish with a plan to haircut €30 billion of unguaranteed bonds by two-thirds on average. Lenihan was overjoyed, according to a source who was there, telling the IMF team: “You are Ireland’s salvation.”
    The deal was torpedoed from an unexpected direction. At a conference call with the G7 finance ministers, the haircut was vetoed by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner who, as his payment of $13 billion from government-owned AIG to Goldman Sachs showed, believes that bankers take priority over taxpayers. The only one to speak up for the Irish was UK chancellor George Osborne, but Geithner, as always, got his way.

    Did Obama help us out then? What sort of effect would €20bn or so have had on our hospital waiting lists?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭Walter H Price


    Stupid decision they popped in here once for all of about 15 minutes and spent a good chunk of that in the bog arse of Offaly sipping Guinness for the media, because Obama wanted the Irish vote ahead of his re-election campaign.

    You really have to wonder would the world be so in love with this man if it wasn't for his skills as an orator and the color of his skin , he brought more war, debt poverty and social division during his 78 years then peace and hope.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,633 ✭✭✭✭murpho999


    Stupid decision they popped in here once for all of about 15 minutes and spent a good chunk of that in the bog arse of Offaly sipping Guinness for the media, because Obama wanted the Irish vote ahead of his re-election campaign.

    You really have to wonder would the world be so in love with this man if it wasn't for his skills as an orator and the color of his skin , he brought more war, debt poverty and social division during his 78 years then peace and hope.

    Where did he bring more war that people are talking about?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,828 ✭✭✭stimpson


    valoren wrote: »
    Lest we forget, that when he was asked to intervene when Garth Brooks pulled out of his Croker gigs, he did nothing at all!!!!!!

    Good point.

    I was a bit on the fence with all the talk of drone bombing. Now I'm totally in favour of it. The man's a hero!


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,761 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    murpho999 wrote: »
    Where did he bring more war that people are talking about?

    Libya and Yemen for starters.
    Record sales of fighter jets and weapons to Saudi Arabia who are starving the Yemeni people.
    Obama's administration supported a coup against the democratically elected government of Honduras.
    The US was involved in more wars under Obama than under George W Bush.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,761 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    The Capuchin monks who feed thousands every week in Dublin should have gotten the freedom of the city, but the Lord Mayor wants to meet the Obamas.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭FlawedGenius


    Obama care was brilliant, seemed liked a genuinely nice person.
    No president will ever be liked, us presidents dont have as much power as what people think.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I'm fierce disappointed ye haven't brought up the garlic import tax fiddler getting jailed yet

    Yis whinging shower.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump


    Obama care was brilliant, seemed liked a genuinely nice person.
    No president will ever be liked, us presidents dont have as much power as what people think.

    Hold on there a minute me boyo with your "us presidents"........ I don't see FlawedGenuis being the President of fuck all.


    :P


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,694 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    Feck Obama bring over Trump and he's super hot wife and daughter.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,832 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump


    Feck Obama bring over Trump and he's super hot wife and daughter.


    What about me other young wan that looks like she might have an extra few chromosomes? I do have to keep her hidden most of the time.

    But Ivanka and Melania are definitely rides. As I've said before, if she wasn't me daughter.......


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,694 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    I'd say Tiffanys grounded for the next 8 years in case she embarresses daddy, I'd lend her a chromosome or two if she's short.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,275 ✭✭✭Your Face


    But Obama is a minority President therefore liberal and cool.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,057 ✭✭✭mulbot


    Was this the same Obama who only a few weeks after his visit here went on numerous TV programmes criticizing Ireland for its tax policies?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,007 ✭✭✭✭Zebra3


    mulbot wrote: »
    Was this the same Obama who only a few weeks after his visit here went on numerous TV programmes criticizing Ireland for its tax policies?

    Hard to tell with him being covered in so much of the blood of his victims.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    What's embarrassing is people calling Obama a warmonger and bringing up drones in every discussion about him. It's the same people who incessantly rabbled on about Clinton's emails during the Presidential election. It's bull****. By all accounts, Obama was one of the most informed Presidents concerning foreign policy, spending countless hours studying intelligence briefs and acting on national intelligence advice given to him by the various agencies. This warmonger stuff is nonsense, and not even Fox News in the US come out with such crap. The most place I see it is from Trump supporters on twitter and Irish people on boards trying to sound edgy and against the grain, almost alternative you could say!

    Yeah bringing up the facts about dead Libyans and Yemenis and countries destroyed is just sooo boooring. What really matters is the fact he fist-bumped basketballers and his wife dances on talk shows.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭Walter H Price


    FTA69 wrote: »
    Yeah bringing up the facts about dead Libyans and Yemenis and countries destroyed is just sooo boooring. What really matters is the fact he fist-bumped basketballers and his wife dances on talk shows.

    It's unreal how glossed over his failing as a president have been, He spent every day of his 8 year term at war becoming the first president to do so, imprisoned more whistle blowers then any president in history , dropped more bombs in more countries then Bush or in fact any president since WW2 , destabilized the entire middle east , armed ISIS and the Saudi regime , paved the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons which they are now already testing , increased the national debt more then any president in history, played a key role in the widening racial division in the states , Crime is higher , the wealth gap grew , the price of health insurance jumped squeezing the squeezed middle even further, the American people completely rejected his presidency giving control of the house and senate to the republicans etc....

    But he was mates with Beyonce and Jay Z , had a cool accent , didn't have an affair and seemed kinda bright and likable so obviously he was a great president.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,639 ✭✭✭andekwarhola


    murpho999 wrote: »
    Who is embarrassed OP? You?

    What had Nelson Mandela, JFK, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev,Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa got to do with Dublin either?

    In other words, it's not confined to barracks.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 249 ✭✭Galway_Old_Man


    Obama care was brilliant, seemed liked a genuinely nice person.
    No president will ever be liked, us presidents dont have as much power as what people think.

    Ah here, the people went wild for Bill when he came over.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,257 ✭✭✭Yourself isit


    It's unreal how glossed over his failing as a president have been, He spent every day of his 8 year term at war becoming the first president to do so, imprisoned more whistle blowers then any president in history , dropped more bombs in more countries then Bush or in fact any president since WW2 , destabilized the entire middle east , armed ISIS and the Saudi regime , paved the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons which they are now already testing , increased the national debt more then any president in history, played a key role in the widening racial division in the states , Crime is higher , the wealth gap grew , the price of health insurance jumped squeezing the squeezed middle even further, the American people completely rejected his presidency giving control of the house and senate to the republicans etc....

    But he was mates with Beyonce and Jay Z , had a cool accent , didn't have an affair and seemed kinda bright and likable so obviously he was a great president.

    Yemen has subsequently become better known in the last few weeks though. I wonder why.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 249 ✭✭Galway_Old_Man


    Yemen has subsequently become better known in the last few weeks though. I wonder why.

    Good PR offensive by their tourism board.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,956 ✭✭✭✭Omackeral


    Yemen has subsequently become better known in the last few weeks though. I wonder why.

    Nonsense, Chandler Bing put Yemen on the map.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,140 ✭✭✭323


    It's unreal how glossed over his failing as a president have been, He spent every day of his 8 year term at war becoming the first president to do so, imprisoned more whistle blowers then any president in history , dropped more bombs in more countries then Bush or in fact any president since WW2 , destabilized the entire middle east , armed ISIS and the Saudi regime , paved the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons which they are now already testing , increased the national debt more then any president in history, played a key role in the widening racial division in the states , Crime is higher , the wealth gap grew , the price of health insurance jumped squeezing the squeezed middle even further, the American people completely rejected his presidency giving control of the house and senate to the republicans etc....

    But he was mates with Beyonce and Jay Z , had a cool accent , didn't have an affair and seemed kinda bright and likable so obviously he was a great president.

    +1

    Ahh but was he not given the Nobel peace prize!

    The Nobel Committee must have had the same liberal blinkers on as Dublin Council, gave him the Peace Prize for his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."

    After which he initiated his massive $1 trillion nuclear weapons building & modernization program with a slew of new cruise missiles, ICBMs, nuclear submarines, and long-range bombers over the next three decades. A new nuclear arms race.

    “Follow the trend lines, not the headlines,”



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭Walter H Price


    323 wrote: »
    +1

    Ahh but was he not given the Nobel peace prize!

    The Nobel Committee must have had the same liberal blinkers on as Dublin Council, gave him the Peace Prize for his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."

    After which he initiated his massive $1 trillion nuclear weapons building & modernization program with a slew of new cruise missiles, ICBMs, nuclear submarines, and long-range bombers over the next three decades. A new nuclear arms race.

    And gave Iran nuclear capabilities which in my view will lead to the next major war in that region , already they have test fired ballistics with death to Israel inscribed on the side , For witch Trump put them on warning and was duly vilified as a warmonger.

    He's a charismatic guy no doubt but how are people just looking past his glaring failings both on a domestic and international stage


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,313 ✭✭✭✭Sam Kade


    Obama care was brilliant, seemed liked a genuinely nice person.
    No president will ever be liked, us presidents dont have as much power as what people think.
    How so, please explain?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,045 ✭✭✭✭gramar


    What's embarrassing is people calling Obama a warmonger and bringing up drones in every discussion about him. It's the same people who incessantly rabbled on about Clinton's emails during the Presidential election. It's bull****. By all accounts, Obama was one of the most informed Presidents concerning foreign policy, spending countless hours studying intelligence briefs and acting on national intelligence advice given to him by the various agencies. This warmonger stuff is nonsense, and not even Fox News in the US come out with such crap. The most place I see it is from Trump supporters on twitter and Irish people on boards trying to sound edgy and against the grain, almost alternative you could say!


    Obama promised he would bring back US soliders and you have to hand it to him as he did considerably reduce the number or US troops serving overseas. Big pat on the back there Barak. However while you mightn't like the drones being mentioned they were one of the means he used to replaced those troops. Just because there are less people there on the ground doesn't mean that the US is any less involved in warfare.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,839 ✭✭✭Jelle1880


    It's unreal how glossed over his failing as a president have been, He spent every day of his 8 year term at war becoming the first president to do so, imprisoned more whistle blowers then any president in history , dropped more bombs in more countries then Bush or in fact any president since WW2 , destabilized the entire middle east , armed ISIS and the Saudi regime , paved the way for Iran to develop nuclear weapons which they are now already testing , increased the national debt more then any president in history, played a key role in the widening racial division in the states , Crime is higher , the wealth gap grew , the price of health insurance jumped squeezing the squeezed middle even further, the American people completely rejected his presidency giving control of the house and senate to the republicans etc....

    But he was mates with Beyonce and Jay Z , had a cool accent , didn't have an affair and seemed kinda bright and likable so obviously he was a great president.

    And yet the American people (you know, the ones actually living under his seemingly terrible rule) like him.
    How odd. Almost as if it's a little more complicated than what you summed up. Not to mention that many of the things you talk about are complete lies.
    Iran is not testing nuclear weapons, they are testing ICBM's which are just 'normal' missiles if not armed with a nuclear warhead (which is something they normally can't develop since they agreed to inspections). ISIS rose to prominence because of the mess left behind by Bush, although I do agree that the arming of other rebel factions is a dumb move by the US, but that's what proxy wars are all about.

    You focus on the debt, but ignore the fact he inherited a country on the brink of collapse after the 2008 crisis and managed to turn it around by producing more jobs, the US economy is back on track,...
    The Saudi's get weapons from all over the globe, not just the US (although I do think they should be dropped like a brick by everyone else).

    He will be remembered as a good president because he seemed to be able to juggle the **** decisions with the good ones, where as other presidents often leaned more to one side of the spectrum.

    I think this comment on the question asked on Quora sums it up best:

    https://www.quora.com/What-will-President-Obamas-legacy-be
    I would largely say that C.J. Fuller’s answer is a key part of Obama’s legacy, at least in foreign policy; however, he will primarily be known for the diplomatic overtures in China, Cuba, and Iran, the former concerning climate change and cybersecurity, the middle being a total thaw in relations, and the latter concerning fissile material stockpiles.

    The greatest blight on his foreign policy legacy will not be the intervention in Libya, but either the use of expanded drone warfare (unsanctioned by the Pakistani government) in northwestern Pakistan, which has claimed countless civilians, the failure of the ‘pivot to Asia’, essentially containment 2.0 targeted toward China, or the failure of the Obama administration and State Department to go beyond a five-day ceasefire in working with Russia vis-a-vis the Syrian Civil War.

    His only triumph in combating terrorism will be the assassination of Osama bin Laden, and that won’t outshine the specters of ISIS, AQAP, and Boko Haram.

    In terms of domestic policy, the Obama administration’s greatest legacy will be the use of science above opinion polling and ideology for determining the reliability of even liberal programs. An example of this is Obama’s promise to conclude the evaluation of Head Start programs, a jewel of the Great Society, the peak of postwar liberalism, after scientific studies (some using randomized controlled trials, even) showed that children raised under those Head Start programs performed comparably to those who grew up without Head Start. It showed the administration’s analytical acumen, even as it got lost in the tall weeds of the political media.

    His next greatest legacy, no doubt, is the Affordable Care Act, which reduced healthcare cost inflation rates from around 6% to 3%, the lowest since 1962, and expanded private health insurance to about 32 million people. (Though, then again, it will still leave 26 million uninsured by 2019, according to the CBO. And there was a universal single-payer option on the table at the time of the 2009 healthcare debate called H.R. 676, but Obama pivoted instead to a twenty-year-old Heritage Foundation plan, or rather, an updated version of Nixon’s proposed health care reforms.)

    And then comes his attempt to breathe life into the renewable energy sector and help grow health IT infrastructures across America, in the all-important American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In my view, it contained too many tax breaks, and it surely was not enough (at one point, there were plans for the ARRA to cost $1.5 trillion during discussions among the Council of Economic Advisers) to boost the economy faster, as evidenced by the number of long-term unemployed essentially staying flat along with real wages well through 2016, nor was it enough to remedy our ailing infrastructure (still a big topic in this year’s presidential elections), transport, water, housing or otherwise. But it did prevent another Depression, as most economists would agree.

    Another great legacy of Obama’s was his commitment to fiscal responsibility by pushing for the resurrection of the PAYGO Act requiring new revenue or cuts to existing spending of equal size for every piece legislation of new spending: the PAYGO Act’s return paved the way for the federal budget deficit to shrink from $1 trillion in 2011 to $426 billion in 2015.

    He oversaw the expansion of LGBT rights in America, but he also oversaw the secret expansion of a surveillance state rife with warrantless wiretapping and e-mail monitoring.

    He had too light of a touch on the financial sector (mainly due to his campaign’s swooping in and receiving money from their donors in the summer of 2008 as the Clinton campaign’s momentum petered out), as evidenced by the fact that the shadow banking sector has grown more in the past eight years than before the Recession, and by not restoring sections 20 and 32 of the 1933 Banking Act, the Glass-Steagall separation, that placed a firewall between investment and commercial banks.

    And Obama did not (some would argue could not) fight Congressional Republicans hard enough on the Waxman-Markey bill that set up a market for carbon emission permits, or on reforming immigration (where he was forced to rely on executive action in 2014, similar to his resigned turn to the Clean Power Plan the next year) or on passing new gun control in the wake of Sandy Hook in 2012 and the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016.

    Race relations have stagnated, with both African American and white respondents agreeing that ‘race relations have gotten worse under Obama’ throughout 2014 and well through the summer of 2015.

    I will not deny, though, that he was an okay president. And as Vox states, President Obama was “one of the most consequential presidents in recent history”.

    That said, I don't see why foreign leaders should be given this.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭Walter H Price


    Jelle1880 wrote: »
    And yet the American people (you know, the ones actually living under his seemingly terrible rule) like him.

    How odd. Almost as if it's a little more complicated than what you summed up.
    That said, I don't see why foreign leaders should be given this anyway.

    thats why the voted to hamstring him for the second 4 years of his presidency , giving the house and senate to the republicans.

    Many Americans i know think he was an absolute snake oil salesman , loads of charm and personality , no substance an there is no denying his failings regards international policy and the situation in the middle east and north Africa


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,839 ✭✭✭Jelle1880


    thats why the voted to hamstring him for the second 4 years of his presidency , giving the house and senate to the republicans.

    Many Americans i know think he was an absolute snake oil salesman , loads of charm and personality , no substance an there is no denying his failings regards international policy and the situation in the middle east and north Africa

    That doesn't necessarily mean they disagree with Obama. And even if they did, it was probably one of the dumbest things they could have done, given the results.

    The Congress under the first 2 years of Obama's presidency is generally seen as one of the most productive in US history, the 112th Congress that followed is seen as one of the least productive ones since WWII with record low approval rates. The 113th managed to get an even lower approval rating.

    There is so much lobbying etc. in the US Congress that it's not as easy to say 'Well, they voted in the Republicans because they don't like Obama'. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,839 ✭✭✭Walter H Price


    Jelle1880 wrote: »
    That doesn't necessarily mean they disagree with Obama. And even if they did, it was probably one of the dumbest things they could have done, given the results.

    The Congress under the first 2 years of Obama's presidency is generally seen as one of the most productive in US history, the 112th Congress that followed is seen as one of the least productive ones since WWII with record low approval rates. The 113th managed to get an even lower approval rating.

    There is so much lobbying etc. in the US Congress that it's not as easy to say 'Well, they voted in the Republicans because they don't like Obama'. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

    i fully understand its complexity , but the fact remains that while it the congress in his first two years was highly productive it was rejected at the mid term of his first 4 years and he was effectively left as a lame duck for the next 6. There is no denying Obama's skill as an orator , his charm and charisma particularly in contrast to the the presidents who preceded him and now his successor.

    But in real terms he left the country in a worse state then he found it , economically and socially and i think in the longer term when the reactionary stuff to Trumps election dies down and the rose tinted glasses are removed he will be remembered as a poor president.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,839 ✭✭✭Jelle1880


    i fully understand its complexity , but the fact remains that while it the congress in his first two years was highly productive it was rejected at the mid term of his first 4 years and he was effectively left as a lame duck for the next 6. There is no denying Obama's skill as an orator , his charm and charisma particularly in contrast to the the presidents who preceded him and now his successor.

    But in real terms he left the country in a worse state then he found it , economically and socially and i think in the longer term when the reactionary stuff to Trumps election dies down and the rose tinted glasses are removed he will be remembered as a poor president.

    Sorry, but saying he left the country worse off economically is a complete fabrication and has absolutely no basis in reality.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-19/ranking-the-obama-economy
    By these measures, the economy strengthened the most between 1993 and 2000, when President Bill Clinton was in office, followed by the Obama years, 2009-2016. So whatever you think of Obama’s policy choices, the U.S. economy did better while he was in the White House than it did under all but one of his five most recent predecessors.
    Obama took office during the worst recession since the Great Depression, when the economy was losing 750,000 jobs a month and already had lost a record 9 percent of GDP. He completed his two terms with the largest annual gain in the value of the dollar, the biggest annual decrease in household debt as a percentage of disposable income, and the largest annual increases in car sales and hourly wages. His presidency coincided with the second-highest annual gain in home equity and trailed only the Clinton period in deficit reduction as a percentage of GDP. While non-farm payrolls under Obama had a slower annual increase than they did under Jimmy Carter, Clinton and Ronald Reagan, they rose for 75 consecutive months, the longest streak since February 1939.
    Facts are stubborn things. By measures that count, the last eight years have been a time of steady improvement, though short of a record-setting boom. Only one of the last six presidents led the U.S. during a more vigorous economic period. That was Clinton, and he gives Obama extra credit because of the financial crisis.

    “President Obama started with a much weaker economy than I did,” Clinton said in his nominating speech at the 2012 Democratic Convention. “No president -- no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.”

    Plenty of stuff to criticise Obama on, the economy however isn't one of them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,969 ✭✭✭✭alchemist33


    Feck Obama bring over Trump and he's super hot wife and daughter.

    Does Trump have some secret wife stashed away somewhere that the rest of us haven't seen?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 249 ✭✭Galway_Old_Man


    Does Trump have some secret wife stashed away somewhere that the rest of us haven't seen?

    You really don't think Melania is hot? O...k...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,028 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    You really don't think Melania is hot? O...k...

    best looking since Jacqueline Bouvier


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