Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!
God, American politics suck. Seriously, I was bright eyed and interested six or seven years ago, but at this point it's just so much bullshit. A parade of it. Whatever a 24 hour news network can work itself into a lather over is the most important thing in the world. It's all just noise.
For those who are apalled at whatever scandals have been hurled Obama's way, please understand that if scandal X did not exist, the same volume of outrage would simply be directed at scandal Y hurled at him instead. The content of the criticism doesn't actually matter at this stage, it's just "find something to be angry at the President about and direct all your energy to convincing everyone it's worth being angry about". The same would be and will be the case no matter who is in office because this is just how US politics works now.
If you've only been paying attention for a couple of years and you're really invested in current political events, trust me, just give it a while and the torrent of BS will eventually wear you down to the point where you no longer give a crap.
Only thing is that these scandals are pretty serious and real (not phony). What was the last scandal that affected hundreds of Americans, hundreds of thousands of dollars? What was the last scandal which resulted in four dead Americans?
This is a president who always needs something to blame because he has failed on almost all fronts. First four years he could blame Bush and his inherited mess, now he has to blame Republicans and their "phony" scandal accusations.
They're certainly cast that way. And to some extent they ARE serious. However, if they hadn't happened, other, also worth-criticizing-the-President-over "scandals" would be played up by political opponents and the media to grab everyone's attention, and you'd be saying those ones were serious, too.
I mean, certainly a lot of the accusations leveled at Bush were serious; rendition, warrantless wiretapping, misleading congress and the public as to the motivations involved in international actions. I have no doubt that serious accusations will be levied at the next president, no matter which party that president is from.
Now, some of these warrant serious discussion. I would say that in Bush's case, the degree to which Katrina was mishandled at the federal level, and obviously the war in Iraq, are the two big albatrosses hanging around the neck of that Presidency. To a lesser extent, the economic... difficulties, shall we say, that occurred towards the end of his presidency also warrant mention but there's clearly only so much that the executive branch can do there.
Similarly, for Obama, I think the Benghazi incident was screwed up from the start. Talking about how and why that happened is worth undertaking, particularly to ensure that it doesn't happen again and that better procedures are put in place for the future (because similar scenarios will no doubt arise in that region). The scale of it, however, is absolutely nowhere close to what I just listed in respect of his predecessor. The closest thing to a Katrina-level disaster he's faced in his term, this past year, he handled extremely well.
The "scandals" that are getting attention in Obama's case are simply the best (or worse) that his opponents could tag him with. And this would be the case, and the level of outrage similar, no matter what he'd done. If a Republican wins in 2016, the Democratic party will figure out what the worst things they can tag him with are, and will raise an equal or greater amount of outrage with respect to those things, and again, it won't matter what they are.
Ultimately while the "scandals" aren't "phony", they're also fairly small-time on the grand scheme of things. The executive management of a country like the United States is absurdly complex, requires delegating through multiple levels various executive powers because one dude simply cannot even be AWARE of all the issues that are within his purview, much less address them all. In a four or eight year period, screw ups will happen, and you hope they're limited in scope, scale, cost of human life and cost in terms of dollars. It may sound cold, but that's the cost of doing business as a superpower. I don't care who the next president is, they will face these bumps in the road because no one, in the current world, could bat 1.000 in the White House.
When that President DOES face those issues, the other party will seize on them and direct every bit of bile, anger, outrage and venom they can muster directly at said President's head. They will do so regardless of what the actual issue IS. Whatever it is, it will be described as pretty much the worst thing that has happened ever, made worse because whoever the President is "isn't being truthful with the American people", no matter what the President has said about it.
This is my problem: the state of American politics is such that the outrage is a given. Whatever happens, the other side will be outraged, because they need to be outraged about something to cast the person currently in office in the role of evil villain dictator Bond-villain nazi Satan guy. Notwithstanding that, no matter who is in office (and whether or not he's competent or a total screw up), that person will be a patriot who genuinely wants to do what's best for the country in the way he and his advisors think makes the most sense. This won't matter, because in current US politics, we must make everyone aware that the person who takes the opposite political view is not only incorrect, but THE DEVIL INCARNATE. And to do so, we must yell and scream and make as much noise as possible about what an evil motherfucker he is, trying to destroy our rights, way of life, kill us all, etc. etc. More extreme is better because people will pay more attention.
Now, add to that the fact that non-serious, frivolous "scandals" are discussed ad nauseum, like Obama bowing to foreign leaders or using apologetic language in a speech or some such nonsense. This sort of thing enrages people who don't support the President in the first place, despite really being non-issues. There was already a bunch of predetermined noise that was to be allocated to whatever scandal could be levied.
That, right there, is the gist of why American politics sucks balls.
If you think this PARTICULAR "scandal", more or less no matter what it is, is really the worst thing and it's for good reason that people of one particular political bent are all up in arms about it, well, I have a bridge to sell you.
