Civil liberties have been destroyed under Obama. Worse than they were with Bush. The economy is still in shambles. Gas prices are surging. Unemployment is shitty. Let's not forget about the NSA and IRS controversies. Obama has been shit, but Romney should not pretend he'd be better.
1. Yep, because I'm sure Obama started PRISM. Maybe, just maybe, his administration is the first one not black bagging people like Snowden and THAT is why we're actually hearing about this shit, since the PRISM itself pre-dates Obama's presidency and similar programs likely date back even further than that.
2. Drones? Fuck that. Drones are bad ass. I don't care where you were born, when you personally declare war on America you don't get to hide behind American civil liberties anymore.
3. Bush is the reason we have prison style checkpoints in our airports, "border" patrol searches 100 miles from our borders, and entire secret government agencies focused on spying on the U.S. citizenry actually living in this country without their knowledge. All of these agencies were so over-saturated with money and power during the Bush administration that it's laughable to think Obama can do much of anything to stop them.
A similar example - do you really think Obama gives two fucks about state marijuana legalization? I sure don't. But the DEA, for profit prison industry, and prison worker unions will make damn sure everyone knows that Obama's soft on crime the minute he doesn't stand with them and the DEA is going to police it anyway. His hands are tied because too much of this country thinks voting every 4 years is all it takes to effect change.
4. The economy will remain in shambles as long as we have a large portion of this nation arguing that 1. inflation matters at all for the United States, 2. that workers rights and fair compensation go directly against "free market economics" and 3. that nation building abroad and foreign intervention are somehow more important than nation building at home. Obama's been beating the same (correct) drum for years about nation building at home with zero support from congress and only tepid support from the senate. That is where our economic problems lie.
5. Gas prices. Fucking seriously?
6. See 4, it's not changing until we fundamentally change how we run this country because as long as you reward outsourcing to 3rd world nations private industry will continue to do just that.
7. I didn't realize Obama directly managed the NSA and IRS, or even had direct oversight over the people who do. If he was involved enough to have averted their scandals there would instead be an entire scandal built around how he's too involved with these agencies.
I'm not an apologist for Obama. I think he's an ok president, but far from the one this nation needs. He looks to build consensus too much and has squandered too much executive power in that vain attempt. He also forced a gimped healthcare law through as a result when he should have been using his fist two years of clout to steamroll republicans on economic reform.
But all that said, he's a fair sight better than his predecessor, who was in the pocket of every major multi-national with a handout for him and his party, with the only real agenda being to push the Christian moral prerogative on every scrap of earth he could.
He was better than the guy before him too. I know card carrying dems love to felate Clinton but the man was a crook. He horse traded Glass-Steagall for some magic mortgage beans. He signed free trade agreements with no regard to the consequences. He cooked the budgetary books to push debts into the future and make himself look good. He never engaged in any hard stances because he'd always quid pro quo his way through a back door. He (and his wife) are entirely political animals and while effective when in office breed the kind of gerrymandered corruption that destroys our democracy long term.
G.H.W. Bush was actually not half bad on some shit. An old thinking crone with a moral agenda in straight lockstep with his rival Ronnie but at least he understood the financial demands of the nation and didn't WANT long drawn out conflicts that shuffled national wealth into the hands of a select few via defense contractors and the like. He got himself a one term presidency for that fact though, since he wasn't going to blow smoke about tax increases being a necessity post-Reagan.
Then we get to the great American Anti-Christ, Ronald Wilson Reagan (666). Homophobe, bigot, directly responsible for the for profit prison industry, nuked the nation's financial solvency, created generations of over-entitled wasps sitting on mommy and daddy's money, kicked the foreign handout train into overdrive in his attempt to buy off nations from the USSR, and drove decades long effective government programs from the New Deal into insolvency to fund it all. Yet if you did a poll a decent number of people would argue he was our best president, and many more that he was at least a good one. The power of image and telling scared white protestants what than to hear.
