I had to start a new thread.
He is a very nice person. I have the utmost respect for him. In the future things might not be as I would have run them. But yet you can expect they will run true.
[LEFT]Yes or No?
[/LEFT]
Perhaps I’ve got it wrong, but I thought the citizens of the U.S. had already answered that question?
I seem to recall reading an interview with Frank Yarby, in some magazine or other, about thirty-five years, or so, ago. He stated that Richard Nixon was the best president America had ever had, because he taught Americans not to trust their president. He also stated that they should be wary of charismatic leaders. Always thought that the latter part of his statement applied to any people of any democratic nation.
Yes…The people voted and he should be. Does he deserve it?? I dont think so but I wish the best for him and hope he does a good job…but we will see.
Hell no! This guy is too inexperienced. My country will be in dire straights with this guy. He’s too slick. He sat in a Churh for 25 years and didn’t know his minister was a racist and anti-american? Come on! Plus, I believe he has little respect for the U.S. Constitution. God help us.
…And as If McCain, Palin or Bush was/is any better…
I second you all the way Major.
We needed change, I don’t want bush’s policy in sight anymore! Our country was falling apart because of bush and if we voted McCain, another Republican who thinks that the government needs to give money to the small percentage of upper class citizens who are only gonna use that money to go to Hawaii and the Bahamas while the 95% of America that works for America, who is America, and won’t receive anything, thats just hypocritical, People keep on telling me that “Obama used too much money on his ads” that money was donated to him to try to tell America about himself, what you think is more of an offense, someone who receives your money and does nothing with it or a person who takes that money and actually uses it, uses it for good. McCain would of been a horrible choice, were just gonna have another 4 years of bull crap from the government, were lucky to have Obama and you will see what he will do ,and if he does do bad then you can yell at me as much as you want, I don’t care.
i dont know im only 15 but he seems good.
Lets see…Obama picks a guy for our new Treasury Secretary who failed to pay his own taxes for 8 years… Now he is in charge of our Treasury??? Is this the Change we were told about…Bad move.
I thought that’s the reason why Republicans like him. 
Only time will tell if the American people made a decent choice with him. One thing is for sure, though: He’s going to have a hard time being worse than Bush.
I almost feel sorry for Obama. He’s going to have to try to lift the U.S. out of a huge pile of shit…
There is no such thing as “so bad it cant get worse” so Obama has the ability to make America a real Hell hole. He may just do an okay job, there is no way to tell yet. I think he does not yet understand what it means to be President. No snapping fingers, or clicking one’s heels 3 times to get things done. Just because he is not Bush, does not mean he is an automatic improvement. Time will tell.
Reminds me of a line from a recent satirical series here about our federal politicians. A bureaucrat or maybe some sort of adviser is displeased with some proposal or action of the new prime minister (= President in the US). As he heads off angrily to a meeting with the new PM he says, as near as I can recall:
“As soon as they get to be Prime Minister they think they can do what they fucking well like. Well, it’s time for a reality check.”
Which leads us to the reality that political leaders are a bit like supertanker captains, standing on the bridge of a behemoth, being the public service, with massive momentum which doesn’t respond quickly to the helm.
I once made the mistake of going from a senior position in a commercial corporation to a more senior position in a public utility, which recruited me and others with commercial backgrounds to reform the organisation. I didn’t last six months. The public servants there could have taught revolutionaries a thing or two about guerrilla warfare and undermining people and programs that threaten to upset their little fiefdoms.
It seems to me, with all the euphoria around his inauguration, that he is being hailed as some new messiah.
All men have their limitations, including Presidents of the USA, for whom expectation levels are somewhat higher than for the rest of us.
Whether there is any substance behind the charisma, remains to be seen, but my own instincts tell me that there is.
Me too.
‘Leadership’ is a quality which is impossible to define but, certainly in large doses, easy to recognise.
I think Obama has it, in the same way that JFK and Churchill did, despite them and other great leaders presiding over their share of spectacular cock ups.
My greatest fear for Obama, from the moment he became a real contender, is whether he’s going to be assassinated or at least an attempt made. On the American presidential assassination cycle he’s long, long overdue for it, while there are other factors which would energise the crazies and make him just about certain to be a target.
Nonsense! No one is crazy enough to make Joe Biden President!
In any case, while I do think there is something to the whole assassination cycle theme, security is so much tighter now whereas it was often an afterthought in yesteryear…
My God!
I hadn’t thought it through that far.
I hope that potential assassins think it through, to stop whoever it is who is the VP from replacing the P.
Scary! :o
But not as scary as Spiro Agnew being Pres if Nixon got knocked. And well do I remember that era, when a crooked VP and a crooked President were forced out of office.
Not something we’re likely to see again. 
The irony is, that the three people whose names Obama is being most associated with, in one way or another (being: Lincoln, Kennedy and King) were all assassinated.
Perhaps there is an underlying, and long established, power for whom change is just not an option, and can influence the lunatic fringe to carry out their dirty work?
There was a comment/joke made in the early 90s I think. I forget who or which politician said it, but it was about the first Bush, George Herbert Walker. It went something to the affect that if “Bush was assassinated, the (US) Secret Service had orders to shoot Dan Quayle!”
P.S.: upon further review, and Googling, it was Senator John Kerry (D, MA)…