This will be a lonely thread.

The author had the temerity to see Obama as having positive and negative elements. While carefully and accurately faulting Obama he also saw some good in his policies. That analysis will make the author a Pariah on Common Dreams.

Where any admission that Obama has done anything good is greeted with hysteria and unending personal attacks. I've watched these attacks drive most away from CD that did not toe the party line.

If the article is not attacked it will be ignored.
But where criticism is potentiated, 200 posts!
This is how people reinforce what they want to believe-
And shut out other ideas.

Common Dreams is full of Heart & Soul,
But in my humble opinion sees BO absolutistically, all bad.

That was the regime he displaced, "The Decider" and the vicious murderer with his own hit squads, Vice President Cheney, to say things are the same is to have no memory.

Remember The Decider? One year ago only he still leered, laughed and loathed us from On High. We are lucky times a hundred McCain is not doing the same thing right this second. THAT WOULD BE THE SAME!

Cordially, JosephCotton

With a filibuster-proof Senate, maybe that will change.

The other day, someone asked me what letter grade A-F I would give to Obama. I said a "D" and the person almost fell over in disbelief. And that was on a good day.

should read, 100 Days of Platitudes....

Lobe's assessment is nothing different than the polls show: Great ratings for the man, mediocre ratings for his policies. C+ to B-. Indeed, the man of hope looks increasingly like what Glen Ford over at the Black Agenda Report has been saying for over a year, political twin of Hillary Clinton. No wonder Robert Kagan finds much to celebrate.

Except, Obama has this amazing knack at being excessively partisan for a man who argued such politics would not come from him. To top it off, much like George Bush, he and his team are in perpetual "campaign mode". No wonder celebrity style enthusiasm continues to show.

http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/New.Nanaimo.Center/pudpn/Commentary.pdf

For the first 100 days I give Obama 100--but I would like to change the 1 in the hundred space for a B so it works out to B00!
We will never get any real change --you know the kind bright people can really believe in....Good luck with your tricks--I'm done waiting.

More like "100 days of Lassitude"...

Here's a great anti-troop escalation in Afghanistan diary from Daily Kos-

The Failure of Obama's First 100 Days in Afghanistan
by ZP Heller [Subscribe]

Share this on Twitter - The Failure of Obama's First 100 Days in Afghanistan Wed Apr 29, 2009 at 10:01:35 AM PDT

Where is the Change President when it comes to Afghanistan?

In President Obama's first 100 days, we have seen more U.S. raids and air strikes that kill innocent Afghan civilians, fueling animosity toward the U.S. as violence is up 79 percent across Afghanistan when compared to the same period last year.

We have heard calls for 21,000 additional troops and tens of billions more in war funding. What we haven't heard are clearly defined goals, an exit strategy, benchmarks to measure progress, and a timetable for withdrawal. What we haven't seen is a President willing to break with his predecessor on Afghanistan by prioritizing regional diplomacy and humanitarian aid above military escalation. Here's why Obama gets a 'D' for his first 100 days in Afghanistan.

ZP Heller's diary :: ::
President Obama made his intentions for this war known even before taking office.

He referred to Afghanistan as the "good war" and the "central front to the war on terror."

Even more alarming than this rhetoric was Obama's decision to surround himself with hawkish holdovers from the Bush era: Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. David Kilcullen, and Gen. David McKiernan.

This team has thus far dashed any hopes of a more sophisticated approach toward Middle East foreign policy as they continue to militarize a political problem.

President Obama's stated goal of escalating this war in order to prevent Afghanistan from regressing into terrorist "safe haven" is highly dubious.

As John Mueller, an Ohio State Political Science Professor and author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them, recently suggested, the Obama administration is greatly overplaying the dangers posed by al Qaeda and militant Taliban members in Afghanistan.

If and when we negotiate with moderate elements of the Taliban, they will be unlikely to allow al Qaeda to operate within Afghanistan and risk another U.S. military intervention.

And a negotiated settlement, as foreign policy experts like Leslie Gelb have argued, seems to be our best option in Afghanistan, as long as it arrives with strong international pressure and economic incentives.

What's more, according to Carnegie Endowment's Gilles Dorronsoro, the increased presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is the primary reason for the Taliban insurgency, while withdrawing troops would enable us to focus on capturing al Qaeda terrorists in the region. In other words, a broad counter-insurgency will negate legitimate counter-terrorism efforts.

To be fair, the Obama administration has shown a willingness to reach out to moderate Taliban. President Obama has also made promises of humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan (which is why I give Obama a 'D' instead of an outright 'F').

But throughout the past 100 days, Obama has repeatedly undercut his best diplomatic intentions with calls for military escalation. Holding a comprehensive Af-Pak strategy review showed an attempt at a well-reasoned approach, but Obama put the cart before the horse by requesting an additional 17,000 soldiers before completing the review.

Bringing Ambassador Richard Holbrooke into the mix was a smart move, but Holbrooke's diplomacy was stymied when the head of Pakistan's intelligence refused to meet with him (and another Pakistani minister publicly admonished him) over U.S. predator drone attacks.

And promising economic aid was a step in the right direction, but not when the amount was dwarfed by an $83 billion supplemental war funding bill that slates tens times more for expanding military operations.

We are only 100 days into this administration; I would hate to see President Obama's current path in Afghanistan preclude him from achieving his progressive domestic and economic agenda. Fortunately, Obama, unlike his predecessor, is a born diplomat who welcomes a plurality of opinion.

Let's hope he listens to pressure from activists urging him to Rethink Afghanistan and Get Afghanistan Right.

Let's hope those campaigns lead more people to raise questions critical about the war, and to more Congressional hearings like last week's before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which featured experts like retired Cnl. Andrew Bacevich and retired Cpl. Rick Reyes voicing their concerns. We don't want to see the next 100 days in Afghanistan resemble Obama's first 100.

Tags: 100 days, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, David Petraeus, John Mueller, Pakistan, Robert Gates, Taliban (all tags) :: Add/Edit Tags to this Diary :: Previous Tag Versions

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Our America is like the energizer rabbit--it keeps on going, no matter what--Clinton to Bush to Obama--our Military Illusionists rule the sea, land and air and our Wall Street Bubble Illusionists rule the economy. Soon our rabbit will run into a wall or Elmer Fudd.

The focus for President Obama is still the centrality of "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism (i.e. the US, Brits, northern Europe). On the surface he calls for a green economy, health care reform, infrastructure rebuilding, etc. None of these really make for a viable economy and, his ace in the hole, it seems to me, is go back to what worked before—the old Greenspan Multiple Bubbles program: i.e. low interest rates, easy credit, debt, leverage and the so-called wonders of the unregulated free market.

But going back to our old ways and you have Finances dominating the economy--Wall Streeters flipping paper and making a huge buck that way. They lied, cheated, gambled and untimely lost big time.

And then there's the hope of 21st century technologists. But what they have given us , compared to say, electricity, engines, oil of the early 20th century? Sure, mathematical geniuses at MIT and the University of Chicago recently figured out securitizing subprime mortgages would spread risk and would never fail. These Nobel geniuses were wrong!

Capitalism has finally developed its own economic weapons of mass destruction: cdo's, quants, credit default swaps, securitization, mega-million dollar salaries. Combine this with the usual greed, fraud and avarice and you have a killer system. Except it will kill itself.

The Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus:

Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%)and our biggest sector for corporate profits (50%). Our best and brightest minds make more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit and the downward spiral continues--you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In this we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Summers and Geithner may know people in powerful places but they can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing.

Is there a way out? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our energy use in half, cut our military in half (we already have a nuclear submarine fleet that is armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over AND these subs are impervious to a first strike)and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

The Geithner Plan tells you everything you need to know about Obysmal's attitude toward the economy of this country . . . who will win; who will lose. His foreign policy, especially on Iraq and Afghanistan, is done on a political Scrabble board. The words and their meanings can be changed any time. Sometimes, the meaning of the word "is" is indeed "is" and sometimes it's not.

-While Obama has delivered on various campaign commitments - such as closing the Guantanamo detention facility within a year of his inauguration, re-affirming his intent to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2011

Huh? It's been 100 days and Obama has "delivered" on closing Guantanamo, within a year? Do I really need to point out that Guantanamo is still open? And concerned people around the world are against US kidnapping torture and murder, everywhere, not just in occupied Cuba.

"re-affirming his intent to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by 2011"

Again, Huh? It was just in the news this week that the Americans plan to keep soldiers, both traditional and mercenaries, in Iraq beyond the agreed withdrawal date in 2011.

Which leaves us with:

"it remains unclear how far and how fast he is willing to push on key policy issues, such as the Middle East or climate change, once he runs into serious resistance"

With that, I can agree.

Bring America Back !!!!................100 days is pretty much the gestational time for a butterfly cocoon, but it for sure is not any kind of landmark time period to assess any specifics of our new Prez !!!!

***Mostly, due to the nature of the Neocons refusing to grant Obama the traditional 6 month honeymoon period, it has taken all of 3 months for most
of us to realize we are rid of King George the Tyrant !!

***Three months time only gives us a period to assess that Barak Obama's imprint has been extremely positive on our Nation, and in World opinion !!
What more could we ask for ???

***The so called polls, which I'm not a real believer in, do assess Obama's
approval rating at 64 % . That is well into the positive and proves my points.

While I'd love to angrily give Obama an F for moving to the right and spreading a few progressive sprinkles all the while topping it with more sellout and war slop and goo, I figured that this would be way too easy so think I'll just give him an I for incomplete and save the F grade for 2012 just in case he continues. :)