Obama's surrender at West Point

[Razgovory]

You are crying in the rain if you think Grumbler will admit he's wrong.

[Ed Anger]

There are that many Marines taking a dump at any moment in Camp Lejune.

I want to learn more.

Off to Google!

[Siege]

The best thing about Obama is how much he fires up the Tea Party group and, by extension, the right wing in general. I don't think we really have anything to compare him to because he is the first Democratic president we've had in this age of social media. I will be gladly voting for President Hillary Clinton. I thought Mitt Romney was respectable and I could see myself voting for him, but I don't see anyone else in the Republican party I could vote for in good faith. Certainly not that Trey Gowdy. Can't stand the guy, but the right wing gets all wet for him right now.

Why would you vote for Hilary Clinton?
She have never run anything, until she became Secretary of State, and we know how well that ended.
I'm tired of people voting for candidates that have no experience at all running any kind of businesses or organizations.

[Jacob]

I'm tired of people voting for candidates that have no experience at all running any kind of businesses or organizations.

If you're tired you should take a nap.

[Valmy]

I'm tired of people voting for candidates that have no experience at all running any kind of businesses or organizations.

What sort of organizations or businesses would qualify one for office?  After all Hoover was a genius at running organizations but was struggled as President.

Not disagreeing with you necessarily just curious.  Having former business people running the government seems dangerous as well with all the corruption currently going on.  Business interests may not be the same as national interests.

[The Minsky Moment]

Obama is the first President to even attempt to implement a foreign policy for a multi-polar world.  It may look messy because the nature of the world is messy.  It may sound un-impressive, because Obama apparently has no Kennan or Dulles to come up with snappy taglines and because despite being a good public speaker, he isn't a very good rhetorician.

Overall I think the policy is sound, with the following criticisms:

1) Obama just doesn't seem to have good rapport with key foreign leaders and thus the personal side of diplomacy has suffered, a kind of parallel to his toxic relations to Congress.

2) TPP is critical to the pivot and yet Obama seems AWOL or at least curiously detached on this.  Perhaps there is a lot of behind the scenes activity going on I don't see or perhaps Obama is being intentionally quiet as a kind of reverse psychology with Congress.  But it does seem to fit the troubling pattern of announcing big initiatives and then disappearing for the follow-through.

3). Syria was botched.  Optimal policy would have been to give behind the scenes support to favored rebel groups from the get-go, and then used the chem episode as the pretext for no fly.  An alternative would have been to state clearly up front that US is staying out unless some vital interest becomes implicated and then stick to that.  What Obama did - stay out, then state a red line, then back away from the redline when condition was triggered - was the worst possible approach.

[crazy canuck]

Obama is the first President to even attempt to implement a foreign policy for a multi-polar world.  It may look messy because the nature of the world is messy.

Its not so much messy and unrecognizable.

[Razgovory]

The best thing about Obama is how much he fires up the Tea Party group and, by extension, the right wing in general. I don't think we really have anything to compare him to because he is the first Democratic president we've had in this age of social media. I will be gladly voting for President Hillary Clinton. I thought Mitt Romney was respectable and I could see myself voting for him, but I don't see anyone else in the Republican party I could vote for in good faith. Certainly not that Trey Gowdy. Can't stand the guy, but the right wing gets all wet for him right now.

Why would you vote for Hilary Clinton?
She have never run anything, until she became Secretary of State, and we know how well that ended.
I'm tired of people voting for candidates that have no experience at all running any kind of businesses or organizations.

She was elected Senator

[Admiral Yi]

despite being a good public speaker, he isn't a very good rhetorician.

Agreed.

[Sheilbh]

What sort of organizations or businesses would qualify one for office?  After all Hoover was a genius at running organizations but was struggled as President.

Not to mention MacNamara.

I don't think there's any particular criteria that makes for a good executive and, as we see often in the UK, some people have a limit and every department will have a culture that can defeat people or force them to conform. Then there are exceptions who would be clearly excellent in any department or as PM (KEN CLARKE! ). I always remember Estelle Morris resigning after a while as Education Secretary, she said she didn't feel she was up to it and had felt more effective as a junior Education minister.

I agree with Minsky, broadly. I think Obama's been in a difficult position in terms of personal relations though. I mean he got the fag-end of Brown and Sarko (both of whom wanted to 'guide' him on the world stage), then the uncertainty of Hollande and Cameron (one's the most unpopular President ever, the other couldn't win a Parliamentary vote on foreign policy) and a merry-go-round of Japanese, Australian and Italian Prime Ministers. The truth is the only leader anywhere near as solid in their position as Obama is Merkel - and unfortunately know amount of personal relationship could have been saved from Germany's NSA-tantrums.

Agreed.

Ish. I think he does a great if easily hackneyed line of rhetoric - normally two false arguments and then he'll split down the middle. But he doesn't do soundbites very well. One of the things I like most about Obama - after 17 years of New Labour and their acolytes - is that he avoids them and is a politician capable of using verbs (see Labour's latest slogan 'Hardworking Britain Better Off' or Ed Miliband constantly repeating 'One nation' as an answer).

I suspect, and I could be wrong, that that's what we'll move towards generally (they're very different but I'd use Nigel Farage as an example). I think soundbites and the sort of TV-rhetoric are made for a mass media age and they seem a bit more transparent than when Clinton and Blair were doing them so effortlessly.

I remember wondering (maybe here?) in 2010 if the internet may cause oratory to have a comeback as opposed to rhetoric. If you can go to Youtube and watch the speech online ('a more perfect union' has over 7 million views, even Brown's Citizens United speech got to 200 000), or follow someone live-tweeting a speech, or read someone you generally like analyse a speech - then I don't think the focus on 10-second lines that can be repeated on evening news matter so much. Which means politicians can use verbs