for the conundrum the economy is in we have at least 6 other culprits we can lay blame on, none of which Obama can do much about it. 1, the economy itself, as in way too complicated; 2, the consumers, meaning all of us; 3, the obtrusive congress on both sides; 4, the malicious near racist GOP right-wingers; 5, the economists around the president; 6, the presidency, as in way out of date.

the conclusion? the tricks a president can play these days vsv domestic situation is very limited.

as for Obama foreign policy it is about as good as any president can possibly do. the poll on that account should be open to the people who are most effected by it. as an american who would not rather travel abroad during this president's watch?

(how could any realist not to see the sea change, happening right under their nose, in the world's strategically most important region?)

the conclusion, over all? we, all those who think in the interests of all, should give the guy another term--nothing worse will happen.

First, using capital letters does not add facts or logic to your post.

Second, the Palestinians are "intractable" about negotiations with the Zionist Entity for one simple reason: History. After 18 years of Israel, negotiating, the Palestinians have watched the number of Zionists in the West Bank and East Jerusalem mushroom by 500,000. The Entity wants to keep building while it was "negotiating" because where it builds it will not be leaving. That is known as "unilteralism." So what you call "intractable"
is actually the rational response to Zionists using the non-existent "peace process" to provide cover to its unilateral land confiscation.

Third, you seem to confuse "democracy" with "doing what America and Israel want." Fortunately, the brave Arabs rising against their Western-backed dictators know the difference.

I think Obama has done an admirable job considering the absolute shit storm he inherited. Anyone who truly feels different, has either half a brain ...or is republican. "Not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives"-John Stuart Mill

Basically, Romney and Hunstman* are the only two conservative candidates with enough centrist views to get elected. Why anyone is wasting any time with the other blowhard morons is beyond me. Obama will demolish them in a debate forum.

Also, anyone else feel that our system of governance is grossly outdated and unfit for this new era of politics? A sitting president shouldnt have to campaign. it takes him away from critical leadership duties, and makes us an unreliable international partner. More and more every day I think that a prime ministerial system might be the way to go. (though it hurts to capitulate to British logic)

*=Probably not

"in fact, were I american, and thankfully I am not,"

I heartily thank you for not being an American.

This "Australian journal" is a blog, apparently edited by a man naming himself as Paul Schilling. Look that name up in Wikipedia and see what you get.

Use the search link on the American Age website (http://americanage.wordpress.com) and alongside an incoherent collection of many inconsistencies (" we have written on the topic of immigration in so many numerous ways" -- Mr Schilling seems to like the royal "we") and errors (the editor claims the repeated support of Australian prime minister Sir Robert Hawke -- that would be Mr Robert Hawke to the rest of us) we find the following emblazoned mission statement: "Some call it efficacy—the belief that we really can and do make a difference. We call it passion, drive, perseverance, and commitment. This is the ~American Age.~"

In my experience, a click on the AA Search module with the word Walt produces nothing by the perfesser. A click while using "Stephen M Walt" produces the very polite "Not Found: Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here."

There is little evidence that American Age is Australian: Schilling seems to live near the east coast of the USA and he writes books but does not proffer their titles. He has several qualifications from colleges he doesn't care to name. He claims to have started a company in Australia, Gaslight (sic) Publishing, for which I could find no telephone listings in that nation. Strange, that. Schilling describes it as the largest independently owned publishing house there. GASLight Publishing (with four majuscules) is a company headquartered in Leander, Texas.

How did Stephen A Walt of Harvard get together with Paul Schilling of American Age? Well, birds of a feather flock together. Schilling writes that he has founded online publications "that access mostly on matters of law and America’s affinity for lowering the bar of acceptable standards, albeit in education, the judiciary, and especially inside the ‘beltway.’ "

Perhaps it's his private interests that offer a bridge to Cambridge: "For relaxation Mr. Schilling dedicates time to fashion, trends, models, and all matters chic and vogue as well as reading, and his passion for the game of Chess ... . I write simply because I want to; moreover, I have a passion for words, communication, and especially expressing them.” This last sentence, much like the perfesser, who likes talking words at public conferences and then writing words to tell Foreign Policy readers that he has done it. I hope American Age paid him.

Of course, Mr Walt is either grandiose or mistaken in his claim that he published any damn thing in American Age. Perhaps that blog's publisher published it: Mr Walt more correctly could tell us that he contributed the piece. Is he, though, the American Age publisher? If so, how come the blogsite is so modest about his 2009 contribution?

I agree with Prof. Walt that Obama is in deep trouble. (I think this view is fairly widely shared by most Amercans.) Short of a miraculous economic resurgence, I think it is almost certain that he will be defeated in 2012. My concern is, who will replace him and with what policies? The Republicans aren't going to raise taxes on the rich, so social programs will end up being cut and the poor will become poorer.

I had watched Obama as a Senator very closely. Played it safe, sat on the fence on many issues..so when the "hope and change" pr campaign started what could a person do? No way was I going to support Hillary after she knowingly (former weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote a great deal about Hillary knowing) voted for the Iraq war resolution. I jumped on Obama's bus "hoping" put literally hundreds of hours in on his campaign in both Colorado and Ohio. Lots of Republicans not only voted for him but worked on his campaign. Not happy with increase of numbers in Afghanistan, unwilling to hold anyone accountable for the Bush administrations WMD lies, no bankers prosecuted for their crimes...lots of deep disappointment.

But what alternative do we have? Romney will really hand it to the fat cats.

I think the 2012 Obama campaign should go with what one of my General uncles said to me when I was having a hard time "no one said it would be easy"

My suggestion for the Obama campaign "no one said change would be easy" Keep pushing....hard

Tragically I don't think that people like the author of the below linked article, nor of his views, matter much in the world of the GOP these days.

"It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant."

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

It also of course allows Obama to steer the USA into a ever rightwards course by appearing sane and moderate in the face of sheer lunacy.

Not being American, I can't help thinking in terms of global stability. Which choice would do the world less harm?

Obama started out his presidency by not being Bush. The main reason behind his popularity was an awful predecessor and the promise of being better (well, that and the fact that he's black, but it was cheap then and is cheap now). Being compared to such a low standard, the world didn’t have high expectations of him. That’s the reason why the world could be swayed by mere empty words. It took a while for everyone to realize that in spite of the global understanding that Bush was wrong, Obama can still be pursuing those same faulty policies.
Now, my point is that in his second term hopefully those same empty speeches wouldn’t work. He would have to do more, instead of the sole pledge of not being Bush, he would have to offer more, some kind of coherent strategical concept. On the other hand, being an exceptionally popular president (in his first years), he could have acted instead of speaking, and there is no guarantee that he would start that in 2013.
All in all, a weak president is a bad president. Having Obama re-elected, it would show everybody that a mix of empty words and inactivity provides excuse enough for a weak president to gain the trust of the American public.

Prof Walt, as usual, your comments sound reasonable, and your predictions probable. -- So, let's face it, Obama can possibly loose in 2012.

And who's going to win? Some George W. Bush clone ? Or maybe some of the female stars, like Bachman, or Palin?

Oh my, may God save America, and the rest of the world.

Let me begin by noting that when I was first approached on behalf of the Obama campaign, I asked the young person who contaced me what Obama stood for. He couldn't or wouldn't tell me. (There were others later, and none of them would discuss it either.) We then went to Obama's website and spent an hour trying to find out, with no results. Later, a spokesperson for his campaign announced proudly on NPR that the Obama campaign was pleased with the results of not telling the public what he stood for and that they intended to continue that through to the election.

We have the birther controversy because Obama decided that he wouldn't tell people any more about his background than he would about his politics. The presumption appears to have been that making his opponents chase down these details would keep them off the trail of what he was really about.

Talk about buying a pig in a poke!

The key to understanding the real Obama turned out to be four things much mentioned by his opponents, but generally ignored by the media:

1. His record of voting "Present" in the Sentate. Much of his track record as president suggests that he is continuing to do this, acknowledging that problems exist, by making speeches, and then sitting back and letting whatever happens happen. If he lacks the political skills to get the job done, then he shouldn't have been elected president, and most certainly should not be reelected.

2. His personal affiliations with the likes of Rev. Wright and Rashid Khalidi, both of whom may safely be described as hostile to America. Obama's foreign policy is predictable on the basis of these relationships. Without any contrary forces present in his Administartion, he basically does what these two would like, even though their interests may be very different from those of the country he has sworn to protect and defend.

3. Blaming others. Until Obama, we basically never had a president who, as a matter of strategy, routinely blames the country's problems on someone else. GWB is a favorite punching bag, but there others, such as Israel. A real leader acknowledges that (s)he faces problems, but than accepts responsibility for trying to solve them. Obama has yet to accept responsibility for what his Administration has delivered. In a parliamentary system, he would have had to resign about a year ago.

4. Campaign money and hypocrisy. Obama's 2008 campaign took in some $400 million from sources that might not be legally permitted to contribute. Since it would be a felony ("high crimes and misdemeanors"?) to knowingly gather illegal cash, his website, in every other respect the most sophisticated ever developed, made no effort to identify whether a contributor could do so legally.

The ability to spend so much more than his opponents is what brought him success. One key issue here is that Obama, then a largely obscure senator, was the first candidate ever to open a campaign office in all of Iowa's counties. If paid for by borrowing, had he been defeated, the burden of repaying would have been his. The implication is that he had assurances that his expenses would be covered. By whom? And why?

And when the Supreme Court decided to allow corporations to donate money, Obama was among the first to scream about the influence of big money in politics. Maybe he should blame himself for that one.

The conclusion now is very much the same as it was in 2008: Barack Obama is unfit to serve as president. He would do the country and the world a great service by announcing in his Thursday speech that he has decided not to be candidate in 2012.

There are good articles on these FP sites but the comment sections are a wasteland of self-righteous polemic. As to the writer who doesn't know where Obama stands, it is because he's not paying attention or doesn't want to listen. Clearly Obama's been a disappointment--in part because he has not done most things much different than McCain would have. That is why the hypocrisy and racism of the opposition is so evident. Obama has pursued very modest reforms and basically continued the second Bush administration in foreign policy. Yet we still have to listen to people talk about his either being incompetent or intent on destroying the American way of life. We still have to listen to claims he is a fraud because he has not been able to solve a financial and economic disaster that no one else knows how to solve and that every current Repub candidate will make a good deal worse.. A lot of people are happy to see him fall but are not willing to acknowledge that the reasons we are in this mess go well beyond his not very effective policies.

This is a non-article with a dishonestly inflammatory headline and an apologia for a conclusion. This is the kind of thing that makes me regret to having turned on my computer before starting something worthwhile. Verbiage for verbiage's sake.

I agree with the person above who says that the comments are biased rants.

Obama is guilty of misleading many of his voters in 2008 into thinking that he is a hardcore progressive when he is in fact a centralist seeking consensus. He came with lots of goodwill from the people and lots of "hope", which was his central campaign theme. However "hope" alone won't help Obama to address America's decline. To do this Obama had to make hard decisions. Unfortunately, his moderate nature along with a hostile conservative congress delayed/heavily influenced Obama's decision making. As the result many of his base, the progressives, are going to sit at home in the next election because they feel Obama isn't representing their cause. While the media still paints Obama as some kind of progressive lefty, causing the right to be completely unappreciative about Obama's efforts to be moderate. In trying to please everyone, Obama pleased no one.

Obama took the job as a turn around executive. When one assumes that position, after a few weeks the problems become theirs and only their problems. Fastest way to get yourself fired in the business world is to continue blaming your predecessor.

If unemployment is not down to 5.0% 6.0% by the end of Obama's first term, if America has not restored at least 2 to 3 million manufacturing jobs to this country, if America fails to return to acting like a world power and countries begin once again to fear the application of our military might then the current turn around executive needs to be fired and someone else given a chance. Of course, he has at least 12 more months to fix the problem. Try a "No Trade Deficit" Act that requires our trade deficit be reduced of the next 24 months, on a pro-rata declining basis month by month or quarter by quarter. Exempmt only raw material purchases and watch the number of manufacturing jobs increase. Take the burden and cost of providing medical insurance from businesses by establishing a single payer government program funded by a consumer based tax, the more you buy the more you pay and watch our manufacturing companies become more competitive world wide.

This country is a grossly net importing country, therefore, a trade deficit elimination act will not hurt as it did in the 1920's when this was a net exporting country--despite the ranting about Smoot-Hawley impact of some academic economists.

Define the problem, find the simple answer. It wors.

If his replacement is needed and he or she fails after 31/2+ years, then that person needs to be fired and replaced.

So there was once this house was built by Republicans and the house was built wrong and prone to fires. They then set the house on fire once Obama moved in. Then when Obama ran out to hook the hose to the hydrant and start putting the fire out the Republicans were busy slashing holes in the hose and then stood by and pointed at the burning house while yelling "Look, he isn't putting the fire out! He wants the house to burn!" Even though we are all living in the house the right still wants it to burn so they can kick Obama out and build the house again but they will be the people managing it. They are willing to let the country burn as long as they get back into power. This is what is going on right now.

Those polls should be looked at in context. From realpolitics, the latest polls do show a minus spread of 8 points for Obama. Yet, against all Republican candidates, only Romney's poll is positive, and then only by a plus 0.2 margin. AND THEN there's the US Congress, what with all the new Tea Baggers and all, they are showing a negative 71.7 spread. Americans may well believe that it's the Congress that is sabotaging Obama's policies.

Obama strikes me as a man who holds his cards close to his chest. You cannot judge a poker game until it is over. Let’s just look at the ME. As a realist Obama must surely have been aware that the usefulness of the US/Israel alliance had declined to the point of becoming restrictive to put it at its mildest. But what to do about it given the incestuous web in which it nestled? From the Wikileaks comes evidence that he was briefed by Israel on the progress of Cast Lead during the interregnum. The astounding presumption and impertinence of such briefings may well have provided him with the idea that the best way to disengage from the association was to let the other side do it for him. I vividly recall him saying how, if they did not succeed, the negotiations he set up with such a fanfare between Netanyahu and Abbas would at least make it clear who sought peace and who didn’t, and that is exactly what has happened. I would also suggest that the escalating levels of insult he has allowed Netanyahu to level at him have done the alliance more harm than they have him.

There are many who see him as having reneged on his Cairo speech but the game is not over. Just imagine how the chips would fall if the US were to abstain from the UN Palestine statehood vote. With one finesse he would achieve just what he said, reach out to Muslims and restore US prestige in the world. Nor is there any reason to imagine this would do Israelis any real harm, beyond giving Netanyahu apoplexy.

Blogger Jennifer Rubin Keeps Washington Post Job After Norway Gaffe
Paper Bends Over Backward to Accommodate Right-Wing Views
By Eric Alterman
Published August 24, 2011, issue of September 02, 2011.

The Washington Post got into a bit of a kerfuffle recently when its conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin put up a post attempting to assign blame to Islamic “jihadists” for the July 22 bombing in Oslo and then let the post stand for more than 24 hours. This despite the fact that it was widely reported during this period that the killer was, in fact, a blond-haired, blue-eyed conservative Christian.

The Post received so many complaints about Rubin that the paper’s ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, felt a need to interview her about her work habits. He came back believing that she had a “good defense”: “She is Jewish. She generally observes the Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday; she doesn’t blog, doesn’t Tweet, doesn’t respond to reader e-mails.”

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Were all of the above entirely consistent with the truth, it still would not have absolved the Post for failing to remove Rubin’s misguided musings. But as it happens, her explanation had almost as many holes in it as her journalism did. Sundown in Washington occurred July 22 at about 8:20 p.m., but a commenter on Rubin’s blog, posting at 5:53 p.m., informed her of her error. Another blogger who jumped to the same conclusion, Wired’s Spencer Ackerman, had his correction and apology up by 7:45 that evening. What’s more, Rubin put up four additional posts after her misrepresentation of the Oslo bombing, the final one punching in at 9:07 (though these could have been written earlier).

From a purely journalistic standpoint, Rubin’s actions entitle her to a stern rebuke and possibly job loss. Not only did she embarrass the paper with shoddy, ideologically motivated speculation, she then pretended she could not correct her mistake for religious reasons, which was clearly nonsense, as well. But for Jews, there are some special considerations here. As Ron Kampeas of JTA noted in his blog post on the controversy, pretending that “Jewish observance is an excuse when it clearly is not — well, it rankles. There’s way too long a history of Jews having to take risks to observe Shabbat for it to be used as a bad faith out.”

But the exploitation of the excuse of Jewish observance has historical roots, as well, inconvenient as it may be to admit. Recall the almost comically hysterical reaction to Philip Roth on the occasion of the publication of his small masterpiece, “Defender of the Faith.” in The New Yorker in 1959. (The story, which was reprinted in “Goodbye, Columbus,” published the same year, concerns a group of Jewish enlisted men who pretend to be let off duty to go to a Passover Seder and instead go out for Chinese food.) One reader responded to Roth, “With your one story, ‘Defender of the Faith,’ you have done as much harm as all the organized anti-Semitic organizations have done to make people believe that all Jews are cheats, liars, connivers.” A rabbi wrote to the Anti-Defamation League, asking: “What is being done to silence this man? Medieval Jews would have known what to do with him.”

I will leave Rubin’s relationship to the Sabbath to her own conscience. But I think we need to take note of this incident as an example of how profoundly skewed our media discourse is on behalf of right-wing supporters of Israel, however biased they may be. Think about it: Rubin is a neoconservative hired by the Post from Commentary because of, rather than despite, her unceasing defense of every action taken by Israeli’s conservative Likud government. She has even reported for the Post while accepting a free trip to Israel from the Emergency Committee for Israel.

Is it even possible to imagine a mainstream newspaper in America hiring a Muslim — even a moderate Muslim — to give vent to his or her ill-informed opinions and prejudices about Jews and Israel? Can you imagine a writer simply assuming, without evidence, that the perpetrator of some heinous crime must be a Jew and then pleading that the false information could not be corrected because he or she had to observe Ramadan? To ask the question is to answer it. Let’s keep playing this game. Now try to imagine an influential liberal magazine whose longtime owner/editor-in-chief regularly referred to Jews as “violent, fratricidal, unreliable, primitive and crazed” and “barbarian,” as well as “cruel, belligerent, intolerant” people who “behave like lemmings” and only “feign outrage” over the mass murder of their people? Well that’s the kind of thing Martin Peretz, owner and editor-in-chief of The New Republic, has routinely written about Arabs for decades. And what if a respected commentator in the Arab-American community called our temples and synagogues ”breeding grounds for militants”?

What if he were invited to speak to a convention of a central Arab-American organization and announced, ”I worry very much, [about] the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Jews”? Well, that’s what Daniel Pipes said to the American Jewish Committee in 2002, though, of course, he was speaking about Arabs, not Jews.

Personally, I think all American Jews ought to be shamed by comments like those and shamed, as well, by the generalized silence in the organized Jewish community toward those who purposely generate hatred toward Muslims and Arabs of all stripes. But I also think it’s long past time that everyone recognize what a profound disadvantage these people are in when it comes to America’s media debate. There is literally no one on the other side of this issue in a respected news source who comes close to matching the bile of a Rubin, a Peretz, a Pipes and many, many others. Almost no mainstream pundits sympathize with the Palestinian position at all. Of course, to point this out — while at the same time noticing that a great many pundits in the media happen to be Jewish and darn few are Muslim — is to invite charges of anti-Semitism and/or Jewish self-hatred. If you ask me, allowing the haters to rant and rave as they do without allowing any dissident voices into our debate does far more damage to both the cause of Israel and the honor of American Jews.

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and also writes a column for The Nation.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/141824/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The%2520Forward%2520Today%2520%2528Monday-Friday%2529&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2520Template#ixzz1YXrp1M8S

The ability to spend so much more than his opponents is what brought him success. One key issue here is that Obama, then a largely obscure senator, was the first candidate ever to open a campaign office in all best microwave oven of Iowa's counties. If paid for by borrowing, had he been defeated, the burden of repaying would have been his. The implication is that he had assurances that his expenses would be covered. By whom? And why?

Obama started out his presidency by not being Bush. The main reason behind his popularity was an awful predecessor and the promise of being better (well, that and the fact that he's black, but it was cheap then best gardening tips and is cheap now). Being compared to such a low standard, the world didn’t have high expectations of him. That’s the reason why the world could be swayed by mere empty words. It took a while for everyone to realize that in spite of the global understanding that Bush was wrong, Obama can still be pursuing those same faulty policies.