He needs to not pay attention to polls and just fix the problems. For some of those problems, a "liberal" solution is called for. For others, a conservative one. There's also situations, such as the economic problems we're facing, where the short term calls for a "liberal" solution that will need to ultimately be supplanted by a more conservative policy in the longer term. (And, for that matter, vice versa.)

I can't help but think that history will look on him even worse than it will look down on G.W. Bush if Obama fails to meet the demands these times are making, or if he focuses on winning political points over governing. Bush and his supporters can point to 9-11 and say that hindsight is 20/20. Obama, staring as he is straight at the laundry list of Bush's shortcomings, cannot say that he was confronted with the unexpected.

The expectations are simply higher now, and with them the stakes for both parties. I'd assume that's why you're seeing so much effort on the GOP side to simply derail anything Obama attempts to do. They're not bothering with offering competing policy ideas, beyond trotting out the same-old, tired, "deregulate everything" mentality that anyone with an ounce of sense knows created the economic scandals of the last decade. (Some Enron, WorldCom, Countrywide, or Lehman Brothers stock, anyone?)

I'm hoping that the electorate pressures the GOP to actually put out policy alternatives as we ramp up for 2010. As much as I'd like to see Obama left alone to try to fix things, I also realize that a strong and legitimate opposition is rarely a bad thing. But, given that that half of the electorate these days tends to exclusively follow so-called conservative media such as FoxNews, where they're spoon-fed an agenda every bit as transparent and self-serving as anything even the most radical-leftist group has ever put forward, I strongly doubt they'll give up their childish "tea parties" long enough to accomplish that.

Note to conservatives and the GOP: cultivating fake outrage based on the puerile rantings of your lunatic fringe is NOT a substitute for actual policy ideas, and only harms the GOP in the longer term, as those fringe interests then come to expect their just rewards for having sustained the party through these lean times. A truly courageous party would be admitting the failures of its long period of dominance, and spending its time in minority productively, by rejuvenating its ideology to be better compatible with the present realities. Instead, it is simply trying to drag Obama down to their level, which is not governance by any definition.

"given that that half of the electorate these days tends to exclusively follow so-called conservative media such as FoxNews, where they're spoon-fed an agenda every bit as transparent and self-serving as anything even the most radical-leftist group has ever put forward, I strongly doubt they'll give up their childish "tea parties" long enough to accomplish that."

Wow...

"Instead, it is simply trying to drag Obama down to their level, which is not governance by any definition."

Yeah, we've never seen the Democrats try to drag down a president, have we? There's no problem with Social Security, the surge has failed, etc etc.

You seem to be conflating "criticized impotently" with "dragged down". The GOP had both houses of Congress until '07, so it was their show.

Now, that said, the Dems haven't been terribly helpful to Obama despite owning both houses since this year, and the House since '07. If they don't stiffen their resolve and stop pandering to the special interests on their own side, they will indeed pay for it at the polls.

Well, I'm sure the Democrats have done a fine job with their new health care bill. I'm sure they won't be financially reckless like the Republicans.
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I'm sure they will, as time wears on. Personally, the thing I've been pondering lately is whether we're witnessing the fall of America, or just a repeat of the Gilded Age of the 1880's to early 1900's, where there were crooks and charlatans a'plenty on both sides, and each side rewarded their own supporters at the expense of the rest of the country. (Or, if both interpretations are correct.)

Assuming that everything ISN'T about to fall completely to shit, then what's happening right now is just Step One. We're going to have to be very careful at the polls, at all levels, for the next sixteen years or more to tapdance throughl the fiscal and social minefield past generations have left us. That's going to mean thinking carefully about whether a "liberal" or "conservative" approach is required by the operant conditions, and voting accordingly, rather than applying one-size-fits-all ideology without regard to the circumstances at hand.

You ask me, I think we need to let the left Democrats just go nuts for 4-8 years, followed by 4-8 years of hard-right fiscal policy, and finally, followed by 8 or (hopefully) more years of irregularly alternating center-left/right rule.

I'm no happier than anyone else that my generation gets to foot the bill not only for Bush's follies, but also the retirement and old-age health-care of an entire generation that's much larger than my own, but them's the breaks, and if we're going to break that cycle and not hand our own children a shittier America than the one we were handed, we've got to address these pressing social inequities and the ever-widening gap between super-duper-rich and ultra-poor NOW, before we have riots in the streets.

Obviously, that will be horrendously expensive, so once we've got things calmed down, and people aren't on the verge of desperate actions, it will be time for an era of fiscal austerity and personal responsibility the likes of which we have never seen since the earliest days of the Republic. We can't just flip that switch NOW, though, no matter how much some of us might like: the simple truth is that our society --at all levels, rich and poor-- is spoiled in one way or another and utterly unequipped to cope with it.

And, then, if we play our cards right (and I think it a 50-50 shot at best) we MIGHT just get to live out our own retirement years in a country whose standard of living matches that which we saw in the 1980's and 90's, only hopefully then without the ridiculous levels of consumer debt and mercantile one-upsmanship.

Well said!

"we've got to address these pressing social inequities and the ever-widening gap between super-duper-rich and ultra-poor"

Don't forget America actually has a middle class, and many things can be explained by a liberal interpretation of what the poverty level is. If it was set at a realistic target, we'd find that the pyramid isn't as badly structured as we believe. However, if we define poverty as having cable tv and free health care, then we've got serious problems.

I see parallels with how the Romans were spoiled by their own success, became soft, corrupt, lazy, and selfish, then fell from within.

As I've indicated in other threads, I've come to see the institution of publicly-centralized health-care administration as being a necessary less-than-perfect. (Notice I didn't say evil, I reserve that for insurance companies.)

One simple reason: For what we spend on insurance in this country, we could pay for the health-care of every man, woman, and child in their entirety with a couple hundred billion a year left over. In terms of economic impact, it'd be just like a total repeal of the income tax.

As for cable, I see that two ways: There's plenty of folks for whom cable is the only luxury they can get anywhere near affording. On the other hand, I'd cancel it myself in a dead second if I could get away with it. There's just not much of value left on television that you cannot get online.

Yes, there are parallels with Rome; there are also parallels with the British Empire: if you're hiring mercenaries to fight your foreign wars, it's generally a sign of a decline in power. The only question, then, is whether you deal with the terms of that diminished world stature, as Britain has, or fight to the death for the idea of Empire as Rome did.