Most reasonable people that I know, including a couple of online acquaintences like Meesha and Prairie Flounder, have a healthy skepticism when it comes to campaign promises. You may have noticed that the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America did not include the return of Jesus Christ, a spontaneous global relapse of all cancer cases, or candy raining from the sky. Of course, these aren’t things that Obama actually promised to deliver.
Politifact’s Obameter has compiled a list of 510 promises that Obama made publicly between announcing his candidacy and his inauguration. So far they have him listed as already having kept six of them, has 18 of them “in the works,” has made serious compromises on one, is stalled-out on another, and have outright broken one promise.
I take some issue with them presenting compromises and stalled attempts as being somehow bad, though. Our governmental system, as I understand it, was intended to bring conflicting interests together to work out compromise solutions that everybody can live with.
So far I’ve been disappointed with nominating all the same crooks to the cabinet. While Bush nominated incompetents i.e Harriet Miers, nominating lobbyists and tax evaders doesn’t rate much higher in my book. People with earnings of that level don’t make unintentional mistakes on their tax forms. At least the candidates get scrutinized, hopefully just as republicans would be. Can’t we find 20 untarnished candidates to back all the “hope and change” b.s.?
@Meesha – And here I had just lumped you into the “reasonable people” category. Do you seriously think that the political system is aware of 20 squeaky-clean candidates that are competent for these positions?
Anyhow, so far three nominees have had tax issues (all since paid-up) and two have bowed out on account of them. I’ll set aside my regular cynicism and suggest that it’s possible that the system is working (bring in some sunlight and the cockroaches run away).
no-one is squeaky clean but people like Daschle are just slimy.
i was starting to come to feel i may possibly be the only dude whom seriously considered this, most likeyl have at present i acknowledge i am not idiotic 🙂 let me be sure to learn more about some various posts immediately right after i recieve a touch of coffee in me, it is extremely difficult to read not having my coffee, adios for the time being 🙂