Obama '08?

Well, well, well...and you must not forget that GW Bush signed into law the highest costing Medicare supplement since Medicare was established. GW Bush also created the Great Recession and tied Obama with two wars that costs billions every week.

You want to talk about "government handouts?" Look in the mirror.

Some call GW Bush's drug plan the "biggest giveaway to drug companies" in history. Yea, that also increased our debt.

I agree that G.W. Bush erred badly when he undertook nation building campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and believe the question of whether we should have ever taken down the Saddam regime in Iraq is a very debatable point. However, Bush is gone now and the current President has avidly embraced the nation building campaigh in Afghanistan, saying it was the "right" war, but so far appears to be making a far worse muck up of it than did Bush in Iraq.

The Medicare drug plan did address a very real change in effective medical care - the great advances in the treatment of degenerative diseases of the aged through new pharmaceuticals. It was very costly as you say..., and the proposal was widely supported by Democrats in the Congress. Interestingly the current administration bought off the drug companies by assuring them of continued high reimbursemment rates as a condition of their support for Obamacare. I agree that Bush should have accompanied the drug benefit with a delay in the age of eligibility of Medicare to reflect current demographic reality.

Bush also made a serious, if ineffectual, attempt to restructure Social Security, something that was vigorously and categorically resisted by Democrats and still is today. The last real reforme were the delays in entitlement ages introduced by President Reagan. More are clearly needed,

I do not agree that Bush singlehandedly "created the great recession" as you say. In the first place this was a nearly world wide event that involved varying cause in many countries, but which were united in excessive levels of public debt, over regulated labor markets, under regulated banks , and excessive government subsidies to some market areas (in our cases home mortgages). In the second the roots of these issues go a long way back in every country. Finally there was a cyclic element to the recession -- it has happened before and it will happen again.

GW Bush didn't do anything "single-handed(ly)," as it applies to all presidents. However, Bush's hands-off policies concerning commerce exacerbated the problem while the banks and finance companies played fast and loose with easy money (I blame Greenspan), and the S&P slept at the switch. No president can make decisions without the approval of congress. They can start wars, but congress must approve the money for it.

As for Saddam, it was not the US's responsibility to change the leadership of Iraq. There were no WMD's that made Iraq a threat to our security - or anybody else. It's not the first time our government lied to (congress and) the people to start an illegal war. I can still picture Colin Powell making his presentation to the security council and the pictures of WMD labs Saddam supposedly had. The Brits and the defector both knew the lies about Saddam's WMDs; there's been many articles written about this subject.

You are beating a dead horse. I have already agreed to that.

But conservatives attention span is so short that it is necessary to continually remind them of the facts.

Cue the patented Eddie Murphy laugh that clearly mocks the belief of the mockee that they are being funny.

Your mistaken. I am being serious as sudden death.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/09/obamas-jobs-speech

Sounds right, but the history of his presidency is that Obama does an extremely poor job of political manoeuvring, so I shan't hold my breath....

You're becoming repetitive Finnbar.

I watched Obama on TV the other night. Great speech by the President. Looking forward to him debating Rick Perry next year. It will be like The West Wing when President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) debated James Brolin as the Governor of Florida. Intelligence and ideas will hopefully crush folksy charm.

A lot of people are caught between not being able to afford the medicare supplement and not being quite eligible for medicaid. Which is to say they are fucked.

Don't count on it, she says, fearfully, thinking electoral college.

That's why I'm so devoted to a clean mind and a healthy lifestyle.

Right. I do hope Obama can fit it into his busy Presidential schedule.

PS: Some of my best friends are Democrats.

Or a healthy mind and dirty lifestyle.

Hey!!!

smiles..

One can always wish for that. However, we have all learned that Obama's ideas are mostly vague and lacking in specificity, and additionally were in many cases inappropriate to the real situation before him. That calls many of us to suspect his supposed intelligence - or at least wisdom and real understanding. Finally, Obama appears to have trouble turning his vague ideas into constructive action or to be able to construct appropriate syntheses between competing external challenges - a rather one dimensional outlook I think.

A result of all this is that his rhetoric, stirring as it is to his claques, has less and less effect on those who think for themselves.

Well we agree on something...we both look forward to Perry debating Obama.

How telling that you expect it to be a repeat of a television show written by ultr-liberals.

From where do you imagine intelligence and ideas will spring?

Obama, or the screen-writers he employs to fill his teleprompters with verbiage he can recount while thrusting, Mussolini like, his prodigious chin to both the East and to the West?

What a genius he has proven to be!

abstinence works, dammit...