Yes.



I never thought he was that knowledgeable but I did think he would be intelligent enough to learn and take good advice from more knowledgeable people. To date I don;t think he has done a very good job of doing that.



I think he is doing what he can do. It is time to leave Iraq and let them put an end to Al Qaeda in Iraq the Iraqi way which is something we cannot ultimately do. It is a brutal truth but still the truth - they will probably be less forgiving and less forthright about their methods but did we ever really expect them to turn into a true democracy in the Western style? I think not.

I am not sure what he was supposed to do in Afghanistan except try another surge. The real problem is trying to overcome real inadequacies in the Afghan forces, corruption in the government, and wear the Taliban out until they give up fighting and come to some kind of agreement to power share with Karzai. Signs are that many of the insurgents are tired of fighting and if there are jobs then they will quit. Hopefully the recent discoveries of the mines will provide Afghanistan hope for a better future with jobs. Until then it is wise to keep picking off the leadership one by one with drone strikes and raids. Most of the fighters are poorly trained, uneducated, and incapable of becoming leaders in Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Strike the Shepard and the flock will scatter.



I think there was hope but I am coming to the conclusion that the world is losing its enchantment with him.



I think the bureaucracy has been atrocious. I am not really sure what he could do as far as stopping the spill and frankly I think BP has continually lied and underestimated the problem and their inability to deal with it, something Obama has fell for far too easy. BP has clearly hoodwinked him. I think it is a sign that he doesn't really know what to do (and I am not sure he or anybody should know what to do) when locals are telling the feds and BP to fuck off and trying their own methods to repel the oil. It is one major cluster fuck.



I never believed he was some kind of savior so there was no hype to me. But, I always thought he was a necessary move for the betterment of this country because I thought a White House run by John McCain and his sidekick Palin would have been disastrous.



I wanted issues brought up like banking reform and health care reform but I didn't really forsee the level of arrogance that has been displayed by his appointees and Congress. They are all just as bad as Bush and the Republican Congress was just on different matters.



He should have listened to the outrage of that abortion of a bill called health care reform and told Congress to start over and he should have had the balls to veto it if they refused.



Yes. We would definitely been fucked had the major banks failed. The auto bailout was necessary as well. Most people outside Detroit don't understand that if GM had failed (and Chrysler to a lesser but still important extent) that it wouldn't have met one or two companies going under, it would have been hundreds of small support businesses (parts suppliers, engineering firms, technical firms, software developers, trucking firms, machine s shops, etc.) suddenly bankrupt. Tens of thousands and possibly a few hundred thousand people would have been suddenly out of work in a month or two.



Do you mean against McCain and Palin? Yes or I possibly wouldn't vote. I am not really sure. I am hoping for a split Congress this fall and again in 2012 so that whoever becomes President in 2012 he or she cannot have a complete and unchecked ability to enforce any piece of shit policy because it "sounds good" or "looks good".