And the president has shown no inclination in his victory speech to reach across and offer his hand to say, "let's work together."
You mean, aside from the bit where he explicitly said "And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together."?
Must have missed itjeffkmillsNovember 7 2012, 16:07:55 UTC
Guess I missed it amongst the usual Obama empty rhetoric. I did catch the part where he at least tried passably to thank Romney for a good race, etc., but he must have buried the cooperation bit so deep in the speech that it was lost with the lateness of the hour.
Mind you, it's not really in his mindset to come back to the center after being so ridiculously left for so long, but even stopped clocks are right twice a day. In negotiations, you have to give something in order to get something. Obama has never shown that ability. It's always been "my way or the highway." To be fair, the House Republicans have dug their heels in these last four years precisely because of his attitudinal difficulties.
I still think both sides need to come back to Bowles-Simpson, but that's never going to happen.
Re: Must have missed itcarneggyNovember 7 2012, 16:12:08 UTC
I did catch the part where he at least tried passably to thank Romney for a good race, etc., but he must have buried the cooperation bit so deep in the speech that it was lost with the lateness of the hour.
Well, the part where he thanked Romney for a good race was as follows:
"I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign.
We may have battled fiercely, but it's only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight.
In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward."
So, even in that early statement about 'good race there, Mitt' there was explicit mention of cross-party cooperation.
Re: Must have missed itcarneggyNovember 7 2012, 16:19:55 UTC
Mind you, it's not really in his mindset to come back to the center after being so ridiculously left for so long, but even stopped clocks are right twice a day.See, a lot of people on the far left would pretty vehemently disagree with this - in 2008, Obama certainly -promised- a lot of fairly far left concepts.. many of which he promptly abandoned upon entering the White House. There's a fair amount of dissatisfaction with Obama specifically because he didn't turn out to be as far to the left as he indicated he would be
( ... )
War on ChristianityjeffkmillsNovember 7 2012, 16:20:59 UTC
Obama has made it clear that where Christianity disagrees with his progressive world view, Christianity should lose and whichever social issue of the moment should win. The big issue from this election was contraception. Mainstream Catholicism, as a rule, feels that it is against the tenets of Christianity to force them to provide birth control is asking them to violate their religious beliefs
( ... )
Re: War on ChristianitycarneggyNovember 7 2012, 16:42:06 UTC
Mainstream Catholicism, as a rule, feels that it is against the tenets of Christianity to force them to provide birth control is asking them to violate their religious beliefs.Certainly. However, there's two counter-points to this example
( ... )
Re: War on ChristianitycarneggyNovember 7 2012, 16:47:13 UTC
Non-religious attitudes (or barely, lip-service religious attitudes) are quickly becoming the majority in this country
Not according to a lot of studies in the last few years. For instance, the conclusion of the widely-cited American Religion Survey in '08 concluded, "The “Nones” (no stated religious preference, atheist, or agnostic) continue to grow, though at a much slower pace than in the 1990s, from 8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to 15.0% in 2008."
15% isnt even close to 'becoming the majority' - over 76% of the US still identified themselves as Christian.
I would agree that society is becoming less strictly devout overall, though. Although even there, there's some polarization; the increase in Hispanic population carries with it an increase in avowed Catholics too.
I actually would be very surprised if Christie threw his hat in the ring in '16 - he's already getting a huge amount of backlash from the far right about being a 'traitor' in the last few weeks, between doing photo ops with Obama and refusing to endorse Romney.
While I think he might make a very appealing moderate-Republican candidate, unless the makeup of the GOP changes a lot, he's still going to face a lot of hostility within his own party.
Comments 13
You mean, aside from the bit where he explicitly said "And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together."?
Reply
Mind you, it's not really in his mindset to come back to the center after being so ridiculously left for so long, but even stopped clocks are right twice a day. In negotiations, you have to give something in order to get something. Obama has never shown that ability. It's always been "my way or the highway." To be fair, the House Republicans have dug their heels in these last four years precisely because of his attitudinal difficulties.
I still think both sides need to come back to Bowles-Simpson, but that's never going to happen.
Reply
Well, the part where he thanked Romney for a good race was as follows:
"I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign.
We may have battled fiercely, but it's only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight.
In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward."
So, even in that early statement about 'good race there, Mitt' there was explicit mention of cross-party cooperation.
Reply
Reply
Reply
"While I personally think Obama went too far with punishing Christianity with modern anti-religion.."
What, exactly, are you referring to with this? I'm honestly curious, because I don't really see much 'punishing of Christianity' going on in society.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Not according to a lot of studies in the last few years. For instance, the conclusion of the widely-cited American Religion Survey in '08 concluded, "The “Nones” (no stated religious preference, atheist, or agnostic) continue to grow, though at a much slower pace than in the 1990s, from 8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to 15.0% in 2008."
15% isnt even close to 'becoming the majority' - over 76% of the US still identified themselves as Christian.
I would agree that society is becoming less strictly devout overall, though. Although even there, there's some polarization; the increase in Hispanic population carries with it an increase in avowed Catholics too.
Reply
While I think he might make a very appealing moderate-Republican candidate, unless the makeup of the GOP changes a lot, he's still going to face a lot of hostility within his own party.
Reply
Leave a comment