WHY CAN'T PRESIDENT OBAMA GET ANYTHING DONE!!?1!!

[JDPriestly]

56. But the list of things that could have been accomplished within the administration without

Congress is long and quite troubling.

Banking could have been set straight had the Obama administration been willing to replace the top bankers the way he did those who were corrupting and destroying our auto industry. Banking could also have been set straight if Obama had taken a few of the worst in the banking and mortgage industry to court rather than just making money deals with them. Bankers pay their debts with other people's money. Making them pay fines does not cause them to think about what they have done right and wrong. What if we made drug dealers pay fines rather than send them to jail? What do you think the drug dealers would do? Why, sell more drugs of course. Bankers are not going to react any differently. Faced with huge fines, bankers will just try to think of even more risky schemes to make the money to pay the fines. The Obama administration is dealing with banks so as to perpetuate the fraud, not to end it.

I am hearing more and more often that the regulations needed to enforce Dodd/Frank and reform the financial industry at least to the extent that bill requires have not been agreed upon or set in place, much less implemented. That is really bad news.

We are still in Afghanistan. And we have paid Karzai all kinds of money. How is that supposed to help us end that war and handle the Taliban? Again, we are encouraging Karzai and Afghanistan to do more of whatever they were rewarded for with the money we have already given them. And that whatever they were rewarded for does not seem to have improved the situation in Afghanistan. That is a failed policy of rewarding conduct that harms us not conduct that helps us.

Now that we are officially out of Iraq, whatever happened to the Green Zone? Did we just abandon our huge investment there? Or are we really still there? I would like to know whether we dismantled the Green Zone? Is there a report on this out there? Did I just miss it?

And why has it taken so long to implement the ACA?

I'm sorry, but Obama has been too ready to just move slowly on things that should have gone very quickly.

Obama's relationship with Congress is bad because he wasn't in Congress very long and doesn't really understand how it works. Also, Obama has surrounded himself at the White House with a lot of smart guys who are mostly interested in themselves. He has only a very small number of long-term friends who will support him through thick or thin.

What is more, it appears from the press that Obama is closer to the foes of Democrats like Boehner and Pete Peterson, the head of GE, etc. than with those who support Democratic values like Elizabeth Warren, Grayson, Sherrod Brown, Sanders, Marcy Kaptur, Maxine Waters, Xavier Becerra, etc. Why don't we see Obama working with these truly liberal members of Congress? Why does he spend so much of his time working with conservatives? It's like he punishes his friends and those on the left by spending less time with them than with the Boehner/McConnell bunch.

Obama seems to think that to get along with people you have to avoid offending them. That is sometimes true, but often not. Also, even if, from the point of view of tastes and similar personalities, you don't get along with the people who are on your side, in Obama's case, with those in Congress who are going to vote for his bills for sure or at the outer reach of your side (like very progressive politicians are for Obama), you need to be really good to them and to show your good relationship with them for all the world to see. You want to reward loyalty with attention and the opportunity to get good press. Obama seems to reward his foes with time especially press time more than his real friends.

It isn't enough to get close to your enemies, to be buddy-buddy with them, if you don't scare them just a bit. Obama is very good at flattering his political enemies, being nice to them, but he doesn't appear to be willing to really get in their faces and encourage his allies, those who oppose his enemies to really get out on the limb to support Obama's policies.

Obama is too low-key to deal with a lot of the people in Congress who are ambitious and looking for opportunities to grandstand. Obama, himself, grandstands the Republican fools. Obama should, instead, be giving people to the left of him more opportunities to make news and shine. He opens himself up to attack and makes sure that the attacks against him get as much press as possible by constantly trying to compromise with Republicans.

He should get as close to Democrats as possible, make sure everyone knows he is close to Democrats, the more to the left the better, and then invite the Republicans to enjoy some of his attention and bask in his (Obama's) popularity. Only when the press and public are reminded of how much clout, how much backing from progressive Democrats, from all Democrats, Obama really has, how popular he is with Democrats, will he be able to negotiate from a position of strength with the Republicans.

Obama is a great campaigner, but he doesn't know how to negotiate or how to use his friends and those to the left of him as support.

The Republicans are in the news all the time because Obama puts them there. That is a huge mistake.