Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 21, 2009

So much for all of those who WERE saying Trudeau is giving Obama a pass.

There are just too many high roller dollars in politics.

I said it during the election and I’ve said it ever since, expectations for him were way too high. He’s no liberal - he always said he was for increasing presence in Afghanistan, he was always lukewarm on gay rights. I’d rather he pull us out and get rid of don’t-ask-don’t-tell, but surprised? Nah.

Do you now think you should have voted for McCain-Palin? Really? Think it through. This is too important to be a trick question.

…two walk backs in a row…awesome…

Still 100% (or more!) happy we do not have Mcp!

Maybe we DO need Palin in 2012. At least our expectations wouldn’t be let down.

Obama’s perverse supporters are used to ‘taking it’ and coming back for more.

I have imagined that after eight years of Obama, we would have to pay by having eight years of Palin. The mind boggles.

Look, Obama is not Jesus Christ, just a man doing the best he can, and that seems to me pretty good so far. I’ll wait another year or two before judging.

Did the Health bill get passed last night? Now if it did, how long have people been trying to get that done? And if he achieved it, that’s pretty good. Except, of course, the exclusion of abortions (sigh).

it passed the first vote. There are two more, and undoubtedly a lot more “fixing” before it gets done. Still an excellent chance it’ll fail, and since it doesn’t establish a national health care system, I don’t care anymore whether it passes or not… it’ll just be more of what we’ve got now, with different colours of money, whatever they say.

RinaFarina- as a former fetus, I am opposed to abortion. Just think where you would be if your mother practiced it!

just heard one health care bill ditched and a whole new one voted on….some kind of ligislative legal switch for the “aamended” bill…..

still the price for isnurance of any kind will go up….. wish “we” have the Congressional Insurance…no donut hole and ALOT cheaper…

and we keep voting for these people.

Obama has been in office not quite a year yet and I am terribly disappointed that he has not:

1) Ended the two wars we are in 2) Fixed health care 3) Gotten unemployment below 3% 4) Fixed global climate change 5) Ended the violence throughout Africa 6) Found a cure for cancer 7) Found a cure for the common cold 8) etc.

Come on people. It took eight years of W to create a lot of the mess President Obama is dealing with. Other problems have been around for decades. Do people think he has some kind of magic wand he can wave and make these problems go away overnight? It takes time and persistence to say nothing of the cooperation of congress to get all this done.

I appreciate the one commenter that said they will wait a couple more years before passing judgement. That is far more realistic than saying he is a failure after such a short time in office.

Hey, Big Green - several folks have already commented on JAD and have said much as you did yesterday.

So criticism should be based on performance while awards be given on the basis of potential and promise?

bobmck- Blaming Obama for racists using the “N” word is like blaming mel brooks for anti-semitism. It’s not his fault some Americans are loathsome animals.

Gay Rights have been voted down in every popular vote. Thats why peoples Rights shouldn’t be up to popular vote.

Considering Obama has an entire media conglomerate out to destroy everything he even thinks of doing, the unprecidented mess that W and the christian taliban left him. He’s only been in 11 months. He’s been pretty good, Compared to the last President who at this point had been on Vaca for 4 months and allowed the worst terrorist attack on US soil in history.

If I had been around in, say, 1862, I probably would have been disappointed in Lincoln because he hadn’t moved on Emancipation. So, sure, I’m disappointed in Obama because he hasn’t solved all the world’s problems. And I think it’s important to keep the heat on him from the left, ‘cause god knows the heat (or the cold) is on him from the right (of his own party). But politics is the art of the possible. We don’t have a dictatorship (thankfully) and he has to work with the system we’ve got, which was designed to be conservative. The health insurance bill is an ugly mess, but it has established a fundamental principle. So if it’s not yet time for champagne, I still say Hooray! Now let’s get to work to make it better.

The best thing that will come out of the 2008 election is not Obama. I didn’t vote for him and never would have. He has ZERO experience for the position he is in. His administration will end up being another Carter admin.

But with the bleeep for candidates that we were given from both sides of the isle, I truly believe that 2012 will finally be the year of the third party. Or really the second party, since the Republicrats are pretty much one and the same.

Obama will be a lackluster failure, Gdub was a disappointment as a pres, but he took over from Slick Willie who took over from Bush the First and so on… The “two” parties have just been pathetically mashed into one, with only rhetoric giving the appearance of being a two-party-system.

The “other” political parties have been gaining more visibility in the past few elections, 2012 is when they are going to start taking seats.

Finally and thank god!

I personally am opposed to a national health care system. Where in the Constitution does it say or mandate or even suggest that I should have to pay my hard earned wages to support your health issues?? But since it is most likely going to happen, then I say that the members of Congress and their families must be required to sign on to it. No excuses or exceptions. If they are going to shove socialist health care down the throats of the nation, they should be required to eat from the same plate.

As far as gay rights, my brother and sister are both gay. I am not. The idea that it’s DNA-based is bullhockey. It’s a personal sexual choice, period. But under the Constitution the “marriage” or union of two people should be protected for anyone. If two people love each other, it is NOT in the government’s function to interfear with the couple’s privacy. That is one of the biggest problems with our government today… The political residents of the District of Columbia have forgotten that their jobs are not to involve themselves in our daily lives, their jobs are to run the federal system and “provide for the common welfare”.

OK, my rant for the month is done… I’ll leave everyone back to their daily liberal drivel….

chanting that Obama hasn’t done anything doesn’t make it so.

Secret CIA prisons in Europe - over. Extraordinary renditions (grabbing innocent Canadians and sending them to Syria to be tortured) - over. Gitmo - closing. Iraq - drawing down. Health care reform - on the front burner.

And of course, the most troubling to Conservatives, Neo-Conservatives, Christian Fundamentalists, and Rebel-Flag waving haters everywhere: THE 787 BILLION STIMULUS IS WORKING. BANKS HAVE LARGELY RECOVERED. HOUSING MARKETS HAVE STABILIZED. GDP HAS RETURNED TO GROWTH. DEPRESSION HAS BEEN AVERTED. IT’S WORKING, DEAL WITH IT.

To quote my favorite political commentator, “Obama’s been in office 10 months, and the world-saving fairies who were going to fix everything with their magic wands have yet to materialize in his wake. WHERE ARE THE WORLD-SAVING FAIRIES, OBAMA?!” (Jon Stewart, in case you’re wondering)

As someone said above, the guy’s not Jesus (and thank goodness for that). He’s not a socialist. He’s not even particularly liberal. He’s a centrist who leans a little bit to the left. I don’t vote in national elections as it’s largely an exercise in futility (especially as a liberal living in Utah), but I supported Obama’s candidacy and expected his presidency would essentially be Clinton 2.0. No mind-bending progress on social issues, just a slow but steady improvement of The Way Things Are for all of us here at home. So far he’s more or less lived up to that expectation.

longtimecomics fan, do you think banks are recovering? According to the FDIC,140 banks have failed in 2009, 127 of those failed after the ecomonic stimulus plan was signed into law. Perhaps that’s your idea of a recovery. In addition, the banks which haven’t failed are not lending out the money given to them by the stimulus plan because they know that at any time, the government can as they did with GM nullify secured debt, and transfer the assets held for security to another debtor.

Next I have something to say about the health care intitiative. One of the President’s talking heads said yesterday that once (if) the bill is enacted 94% of Americans will have health care insurance. Assuming a US population of 350 million, that still means some 21 million Americans will be without health care insurance. And this at a cost which has the potential to bankrupt the nation. From what I’ve read, it also appears that many who already have insurance or who depend on Medicare/Medicaid will wind up with reduced benefits. I still don’t understand why the guidelines for Medicare and Medicaid can’t simply be expanded to include people who need and want the coverage without having to create a whole new system with it’s learning curve and idiosyncracies which do nothing but increase cost and reduce actual patient care. I’m not anti-health care. I’m anti-stupidity.

longtimecomicsfan: Gitmo’s not closing, it’s just moving to Ill-Annoy. We in the Sucker State (look it up; it’s one of our old nicknames. Supposed to have something to do with a fish) are grateful for the jobs this will create, and not particularly worried about having Bad People in our midst (remember, Ill-Annoy gave us John Wayne Gacy, who did more evil than most of the “accidental Taliban” in Gitmo). But it just ain’t true to say that Obama’s put an end to this indefinite imprisonment in a limbo that’s neither POW nor criminal suspect.

BTW, given Sunday’s strip, is “Walk it Back” going to be the theme for this week?

I’ve never really understood why the argument about a biological basis for homosexuality was important. Since there’s nothing objectionable about it (in my opinion), what difference does it make if it’s just a personal choice (whatever that means) or biologically determined (whatever that means)? People should leave others alone to do as they like unless they are hurting other people. Where is the harm to anyone if two people of the same sex have sex together?

Pirate PTG said..

‘Where in the Constitution does it say or mandate or even suggest that I should have to pay my hard earned wages to support your health issues??”

Currently, when someone who doesn’t have a health care plan gets sick and goes to the emergency room, you ARE paying for it. And, emergency rooms are alot more expensive than going to the doctor to prevent getting sick. So, money is actually being saved by making everyone get health care.

choll, you need to go back from wherever you came from

Under a rock.