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That's a pretty broad definition of "centrist". Do you think that Bush was a centrist too?
If Obama pisses off extreme right wingers for doing too much and extreme left wingers for doing too little, why have I misused the term "Centrist?"
From the DarrenS handbook on rhetoric:
When all else fails, resort to smugness.
That's a pretty broad definition of "centrist". Do you think that Bush was a centrist too?
My scorecard, based on things I deemed important before the election:
Positives:
- Gitmo: Lots of political prisoners freed.
- Healthcare: He made it a priority to reform a broken system.
Neutral:
- Gitmo: He said it's going to be closed by the beginning of next year. I'll move this entirely to the positives once I see this happening.
- Economy: I don't think he made things worse. I also don't think he made things better either. We were going to be in a hole no matter who won.
Negatives:
- Healthcare: Having Pelosi orchestrate this was bad news. But you can't remove responsibility from Obama. He's got complete control and can't get it done. Furthermore, the proposed legislation is , and he is going along with it.
- Iraq: We're still there. Enough said.
- Afghanistan: The actual war we should have fought from the beginning. We're still there, we're backing up a corrupt government, and there's no discernible progress.
- Executive powers: Still insisting and rehashing with the same Gestapo-style bull from his predecessor.
I'll update the post if I think of anything else, but I think those are the salient points...
Given the context I provided, I'd say the definition is fine by me, CG.
With respect to Bush, considering he successfully alienated the majority of the electorate to satisfy the whims of a minority, no -- I'd have to say that he fails even the modest requirements I set for a centrist as a moderate.
Obama's hasn't been in office long enough to bear out my estimation of him as an according-to-Hoyle centrist, but I don't find the Keynsian bailout --in theory, mind you... don't get me started on execution -- incompatible with centrism with respect to fiscal responsibility.
And I happen to believe that socialized health care would not only be cheaper for the individual, and in line with a US majority desire, but better for businesses and entrepreneurs. So while socialized healthcare smacks of "pinko," I don't think it's fiscally irresponsible (again -- in theory. Who knows what the final bill will look like) or inconsistent with anything Bill Clinton aka "Mr Centrist" would have done.
You seem to be disqualifying Bush from being considered a centrist because he wasn't popular. Shouldn't being a centrist and being popular be mutually exclusive things? All the Keynsian bailouts Obama is using now were started by Bush. Lefties had their issues with Bush on Iraq and all the social wedge issues. Righties had their issues with Bush on things like spending and immigration reform. So if there's dislike on both sides, and actions in the middle consistent with being a centrist, shouldn't Bush be considered a centrist? Albeit a highly unpopular one.
Stop pretending you didn't get the point of what I posted.
Your usual MO around here is post right wing agitprop about how Obama is Marxist/Fascist/AntiChrist who will destroy America and whatnot. But you're not really a Birther or a Teabagger - you're just obsessed with Barack Obama, and the steady stream of anti-Obama drivel coming from the rightwing noise machine isn't nearly enough to satisfy your hate-fapping needs.
So now you're reduced to trolling HuffPo and other leftwing blogs for bitter or even tepid dissapointment in Obama from the left. Nevermind that it contradicts all of your previous right wing apocalypto bull ...as long as it's about Obama and it's negative, you will post a link to here on SpursTalk. Always. Every ing day.
Don't forget to add TMZ and Perez to your feeds - you might get lucky and catch some 3rd tier celebrity making a catty comment about Mic e Obama's arms or something.
I don't know, CG -- I'm not sure you can talk about centrism without addressing the idea of popularity given that centrism is more defined by the forces it moderates (to my mind, at least) than by any taxonomy or credo. If Bush had left office a popular president, I think I'd have to agree that he was a centrist on some level because he was able to satisfy the needs of a broad spectrum of a diverse polity. I can already feel that definition alone is incomplete considering Carter was an unpopular centrist, and Hitler was a popular leader who was by no means centrist, but this is politics, not math.
So I guess I'd ask you: how would you define centrism? It seems hard for me to call Bush a centrist exclusively on the basis of his reaction to our economy ting the bed, given his repeated and egregious failings as a fiscal conservative and his positively left-winger expansion of government. TARP may have been the right thing to do fiscally speaking when both administrations did it, but that doesn't mean that the conditions that led to its necessity ever should have been allowed to exist.
As to the war, it was criticized by both sides, not just the left, so I can't agree with you there. I agree dissent began with the left, but once the WMDs vanished, it became a steady bipartisan erosion of support -- on moral grounds for some, on economic grounds for others, on both for most.
None of which brings me any closer to point, but I have work to do, so this will have to do it. Good to see you around, man.
He was elected twice with the help of a sizable crossover vote,it's hard to say what's a centerists is when the people aren't given much of a choice.
dubya lost in 2000 by 600K votes
dubya won in 2004 due to the bogus war and with the smallest margin of any re-elected President.
he deserves fully his ty reputation and wide-spread, long-lasting disapproval.
dubya was not in any way a centrist. Losing the popular vote in 2000, he assumed he had a overwhelming mandate to whatever the he wanted to do. he did, and he failed miserably
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