Tag Archives: President

March 19, 2011 · 11:01 am

Avoiding the President | Mother Jones

I’ve noticed this dynamic and assumed it was because the GOP still does not consider President Obama a legitimate President since they think he was born on Mars or something….

I forgot how well he can play them when they go one to one….

May be some truth here….

It is disgusting how the Republicans and special interest groups like the NRA  disowner not only President Obama, but the Office of the President.  Can you imagine how they would have screamed if Dems had treated Bush this way?

Still, in the past there’s always been a bipartisan assumption that the president is the president, and if he invites you to a meeting, you go. That’s broken down recently, and I attribute it to two things: Obama’s appearance at the Republican retreat last January, followed by his healthcare summit a month later. When Obama offered to speak at the retreat, Republicans let him do it. He’s the president, after all. And when Obama initially proposed the healthcare summit, even uber-obstructionist Bill Kristol echoed the old school sentiment: “Obviously when the president invites you to the White House, you go.”

But no longer. Now conservatives do their best to delay meetings at the White House, or they just outright refuse, as LaPierre did. Why? I think it’s partly because Obama scored such obvious public opinion wins at both the retreat and the summit. He’s mastered the art of controlling the conversation and sounding like a voice of reason in settings like this, and conservatives — especially tea party conservatives — don’t trust themselves any longer to come out ahead when they’re negotiating with him. They now consider even closed-door meetings at the White House to be traps, and they are, to put it bluntly, afraid of Obama. I’m not quite sure whether that’s good news or bad.

via Avoiding the President | Mother Jones.

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July 1, 2010 · 10:34 pm

Professors rank President Obama 15th Best President, George Bush Ranked One of 5 Worst

I know this is going to raise the blood pressure of some of my friends and family…

Interesting article.  While Obama has not done as much as some of us would like, we sometimes forget that he has accomplished an awful lot in a short period of time…and came into quite the mess to clean up from the Bushies…

In the overall ranking, Obama rated two places below Clinton, who was 13th best, and three better than Reagan, who is ranked as the 18th best.

Franklin D. Roosevelt again earned the top spot, as he has every time since the poll was first conducted in 1982. He and the Mount Rushmore presidents — Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — have consistently been the top five presidents in the poll’s findings.

Obama’s 15th ranking is slightly higher than other presidents who have taken office since the poll started nearly 30 years ago. Most start out at about number 20, said Siena statistics professor and poll director Douglas Lonnstrom.

“[Obama’s] doing a little better, but he’s generally in the same ballpark,” he said.

While he ranked high on traits like imagination (6th), communication ability (7th) and intelligence (8th), Obama rated poorly ratings on background (32nd), which was composed of traits like family, education and experience.

Lonnstrom said the main factor that gives a president a top-five or top-10 ranking is his accomplishments — and an all-around high ranking in most categories.

FDR, for example, ranks in the top 10 for every category except integrity, he said.

“The experts really are looking for consistency, a president who is looking good across most of these categories,” he said.

Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, was ranked at number 23 in 2002 — the last time Siena’s presidential expert poll was conducted — but has since dropped to number 39, qualifying him as one of the five worst presidents. Bush came in at number 42 — second to last — on issues such as handling the U.S. economy, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. (Warren G. Harding was rated the least intelligent president).

Bush joins Harding, Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, all of whom have consistently ranked as the worst presidents since the poll started, in the bottom five.

via Professors rank President Obama 15th best president – Emily Schultheis – POLITICO.com.

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