Obama admits MISTAKES !!!

Forums: Politics, Obama, President Obama, U S Politics, One Year In Office
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Did anyone see the ABC interview yesterday evening? (Here's the transcript -- and here's the full video.)

I have no grand points to make about the interview. I just wanted to say it's really, really nice that America now has a president who's secure enough to speak openly about his mistakes. Happy belated January 20th!

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@Thomas,

YAY!!!!!

A real Mensch.

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@Thomas,

The Messiah does not make mistakes. He merely speaks of his "mistakes" so you will feel better about him, and the Aussies will feel better about America. He will occasionally intentionally do something that he can claim later was a "mistake," again, so that he can claim he made a mistake and you will feel better about him. It's all part of the Master Plan.

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I wish there was a Master Plan.

uh, no, ........I don't.

I do sometimes, when I see the opposition all lined up in one seemingly singular point of view whereas the folks I'm in league with seem to have the same amount of agendas as Kraft has cheese. (So MANY different tastes.) Sigh.

Then I remember that it's diversity which triumphs over adversity. That species which evolve do so by the many variations they employ.

Joe(the others soon become fossils.)Nation

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ex president bush admitted to me a mistake he'd made while in office

we were sitting around drinking beer and eating pretzels, and he turned to me and said, "one big mistake i made during my presidency, was not running over that bitch cindy sheehan while leaving the ranch, i had the big truck s and plenty of opportunities"

i stared at him for a minute, and then we both erupted into laughter, at which point bush choked on his pretzel and i had to smack him on the back

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@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

i had to smack him on the back

... so that's what you did? Talk about mistakes!

Dammit, now you've made me think of this sign at a 2004 anti-Bush rally: Give the Pretzel Another Chance!

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@Ticomaya,

Ticomaya wrote:

The Messiah does not make mistakes. He merely speaks of his "mistakes" so you will feel better about him, and the Aussies will feel better about America. He will occasionally intentionally do something that he can claim later was a "mistake," again, so that he can claim he made a mistake and you will feel better about him. It's all part of the Master Plan.

Using Google Maps, see if you can locate a time machine near you. After travelling about twelve months into the past, repost what you have above. It still won't be funny, but at least your timing will be on point.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

I listened very carefully to the clip, Thomas, and I didn't hear a single admission of significant error on the President's part. Indeed the theme for the whole dialogue was set by his opening remark in which he said (roughly paraphrased) "I was propelled into office by the same thing that propelled Scott Brown into the Senate, and it was the discontent with the policies of the last eight years." This is a nonsensical proposition that apart from the obvious arithmetic error (nine years, not eight), ignores the possibility that nothing that has happened during the first year of Obama's presidency had anything to do with the election in Massachusetts.

The only meaningful admission of error came in the final moments of the interview in which the president did admit to failing to emphasizs in his dialogue with the American people the core values that presumable unite us all. I found thius rather remarkable comong so soon after the recent bailout for labor unions evidently negotiated in the Presidents presence over the matter of proposed taxes on expensive health care plans. This is hardly an example of core American values, and I don't buy the notion that more Presidential chatting about them would overcome the concrete example of direct involvement in such unsavory payoffs to his key political and financial suporters.

Far from appearing as a real mensch as others have suggested, he looked to me like a squirming weasel trying hard to put a good - if false- face on his own failures and to explain away the shortcomings in his efforts as somehow "necessary" when it is obvious that they were instead obvious choices to payoff his constituents.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Far from appearing as a real mensch as others have suggested, he looked to me like a squirming weasel trying hard to put a good - if false- face on his own failures and to explain away the shortcomings in his efforts as somehow "necessary" when it is obvious that they were instead obvious choices to payoff his constituents.

well, he is a politician after all, what more do you expect

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@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

well, he is a politician after all, what more do you expect

Not much. I was, however, a bit put off by all the slavish slobbering above about what a "mensch" he is. THAT is clearly nonsense.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

This is hardly an example of core American values, and I don't buy the notion that more Presidential chatting about them would overcome the concrete example of direct involvement in such unsavory payoffs to his key political and financial suporters.

Quite. And if only people would remember that your core values represent America's core values, I'm sure these types of misunderstandings wouldn't occur so often.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Well I do agree that the idea of exempting key political contributors from a (potentially unconstitutional) tax otherwise systematically imposed on everyone else under the stated conditions, could be rationalized as a core American value - or at least a frequent occurrence in American politics, I doubt seriously that this was an example of the core values the President was suggesting in the interview.

Do you believe otherwise?

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Well I do agree that the idea of exempting key political contributors from a (potentially unconstitutional) tax otherwise systematically imposed on everyone else under the stated conditions, could be rationalized as a core American value - or at least a frequent occurrence in American politics, I doubt seriously that this was an example of the core values the President was suggesting in the interview.

Do you believe otherwise?

Well, it really all depends on how you frame the question. I'm reminded of the 19th century politician who was asked his opinion about the liquor question. The politician responded (and here I broadly paraphrase from memory): "If you're talking about the sweet libation that is the fitting reward for an honest day's work, the well-loved lubricant of conviviality and joyful companionship, and the fruit of the vine that sated even our savior's thirst, then I say that I am all in favor of liquor. On the other hand, if you're talking about the foul destroyer of families, the vile corrupter of our youth, and the cause of moral decay in general, then I say that I am strongly opposed to liquor!" In the same vein, I'm opposed to political giveaways to favored groups, but I'm in favor of protecting the hard-won economic gains of laborers.

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@joefromchicago,

I get your point and am amused by the irony. However....

OK, let's assume that the President chose to interpret Stephanopolis' question so that his failure to explain to the public why use of the tax code to make unfair payoffs to his political and financial backers was necessary should properly be counted as a failure to communicate core American values.

What then shall we conclude about the President's own values?

Would you consider that a meaningful admission of error on his part?

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I get your point and am amused by the irony. However....

OK, let's assume that the President chose to interpret Stephanopolis' question so that his failure to explain to the public why use of the tax code to make unfair payoffs to his political and financial backers was necessary should properly be counted as a failure to communicate core American values.

What then shall we conclude about the President's own values?

I don't know. I reckon it would mean that the president sees things the same way that you see things, which would mean that we would have a lot more to worry about than Obama admitting to a few mistakes.

georgeob1 wrote:

Would you consider that a meaningful admission of error on his part?

If he answered Stephanopolis's question by assuming that his failure to explain unfair payoffs to political allies was a failure to communicate core American values? Well, if he said he regretted it and that it was a mistake, then that would be a meaningful admission of error on his part. It wasn't the mistake that he actually admitted making, but I suppose it would technically be meaningful and an admission of error.

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@joefromchicago,

Mere lawyerly evasion.

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@Gargamel,

Gargamel wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:
The Messiah does not make mistakes. He merely speaks of his "mistakes" so you will feel better about him, and the Aussies will feel better about America. He will occasionally intentionally do something that he can claim later was a "mistake," again, so that he can claim he made a mistake and you will feel better about him. It's all part of the Master Plan.

Using Google Maps, see if you can locate a time machine near you. After travelling about twelve months into the past, repost what you have above. It still won't be funny, but at least your timing will be on point.

And if that time machine doesn't show me when the then current president admitted his mistakes, will you?

In any case, the Messiah wasn't elected until 2008.

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Mere lawyerly evasion.

Well, I could have said that it was a tendentious, poorly constructed, and nearly incomprehensible hypothetical. I'm glad you enjoyed my lawyerly response instead.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Eloquence was defined in my high school (Gonzaga in Wasshington) as the result of clarity, brevity and a trace of poetry. "Lawyerly evasion" was eloquent.

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What mistakes did Obama admit to?

1 Reply

Obama admits MISTAKES !!!

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