In practical terms that probably would have resulted in little difference in the economy, but it probably would have helped his approval ratings and certainly the Democrats’ chances in 2010.

Well, Hawkins, that’s an interesting theory. So, I’d like to survey you and all RWN readers. If Obama had done everything you suggested, would you approve of him?

Ha ha ha ha. John knows what’s good for Obama.

Thanks for the turkey day gobble. Too funny.

C_T – That’s all well and good, but would you approve of him and his job performance? If Obama had done those things and a pollster called you up and asked if you approved of Obama’s job performance, would you be one of the folks to give Obama a boost in his job approval ratings?

Let me give you one example. Obama’s administration doesn’t sign the land mine treaty. Do conservatives applaud him for that decision? No, they ridicule him. See Teach’s posting on the subject. And when Obama comes out disappointing his own base and giving McChrystal almost everything he wanted, will conservatives applaud him? No way. They’ll continue to berate him for having “dithered” — even though conventional wisdom now, even among many conservatives, is that George Bush’s miscues on the Iraq war came as a consequence of NOT taking some time to think through his war strategies.

The reality is that no matter what Obama does, the fact that it’s Obama doing it means that nothing he does will improve his job approval ratings among the likes of conservatives such as the ones who visit RWN.

Look at the mantra of RWN: “Kneecapping Barack Obama at every opportunity.” That doesn’t inspire any kind of openmindedness towards Obama regardless of his policies. I know that no matter what Obama does, short of changing parties and becoming Sarah Palin, there would be virtually no one at this site who would say anything that would give Obama’s job approval rating a boost. And I’d bet the Thanksgiving turkey on that.

Obama’s administration doesn’t sign the land mine treaty. Do conservatives applaud him for that decision? No, they ridicule him.

Huck, that’s not true at all. If you’re referring to the conservatives here at this site, then as mightysamurai says, you need to read that thread more closely. Two people voiced opinions on the topic and both of them were respectful and supportive of Mr. Obama by name. I don’t blame mightysamurai one bit for calling you a liar – he was one of the people who specifically said of Mr. Obama, “Good for Obama.” Personally, I think you owe him an apology for it so dreadfully wrong. Or at least you owe him your Thanksgiving turkey, which you offered up as a bet.

Now, if you’re talking about other conservatives than those who post here, you’ll need to produce more evidence than just your word that conservatives are ridiculing Mr. Obama over the land-mine treaty. I know and speak with a lot of conservatives, and I’ve not heard one of them say anything bad about Mr. Obama on the land-mine treaty. Not one.

You might have had a point to your diatribe against conservatives, but you blew that point to hell big time when you chose that topic as your example. And now, I’m afraid, the moment has passed.

I came into this presidency with an open mind, knowing Barack Obama was a liberal and hoping he would at least be able to save the economy, so I was trying to support him. He lost my support when he passed the stimulus bill which made absolutely no sense economics wise to me(I was against TARP too), but if he had done something closer in line with what was listed here, I probably would have been more supportive a little longer.

In the meantime, I try not to use knee jerk reactions to not hating everything Obama says and does, mostly I get infuriated by the hypocracy of the left over giving Obama a pass on his gaffes when they wouldn’t have done the same for a Republican. But with his harmless gaffes, most of my anger is not at Obama. I knew from the beginning he’s only human.

mightysamurai – My bad. I didn’t read the comments to Teach’s posting, I just read his posting. I was wrong to overgeneralize. I humbly apologize.

martinhale – My generalization about the land mine treaty reaction was over the top and wrong. I still maintain, though, that even when Obama does what conservatives consider to be a good thing on a particular issue, that would still not be enough to raise his approval ratings among most among that crowd.

C_T – Where do you get that I defend and support Obama solely because he’s black and a Democrat? Please point that out to me? In fact, I support Obama when de does things that I think are good for the country and are right; and I oppose him when he doesn’t, such as on his inaction regarding ending the DADT policy, on his refusal to sign the land mine treaty, and on his sending any more troops into Afghanistan instead of ending that war. His being black has absolutely nothing to do with my support or opposition to him as President. The race card you just played is beneath you. Moreover, his being a Democrat is only relevant to the extent that being a Democrat means representing liberal policy positions. When he deviates from the liberal policy positions that I hold, I oppose Obama, party affiliation notwithstanding. You should know that.

Where do you get that I defend and support Obama solely because he’s black and a Democrat?

Your behavior speaks volumes.

What behavior, specifically, shows that I support Obama because he’s black?

Specifically, the fact that you didn’t support John Edwards just as fervently. There is absolutely no practical difference between Barack Obama and John Edwards…other than skin color. They support exactly the same positions, they’re both relatively young and charismatic men, they both claim their primary concern is for the poor and less fortunate. They are, in a word, identical. Except John Edwards is a white man (and a Southerner no less) whereas Barack Obama is a black man.

I could just as easily say that you oppose Obama because he’s black

Setting aside the fact that you’ve already done precisely that (don’t think we’ve forgotten your race-baiting hysteria over the Obama-Joker posters) you’re wrong. You CAN’T “just as easily say” that our disapproval of Obama is based on race because we have expressed equal disapproval for white liberal politicians as we have for Barack Obama. Our disapproval for Barack Obama is no greater than and no different from our disapproval for Bill Clinton or the current Democratic Congress.

Furthermore, we can actually point to actions by Barack Obama that we disapprove of. You can’t really point to anything Obama has done that you approve of because he hasn’t actually done anything. His “Stimulus” failed to stimulate anything (and has arguably made things worse), his socialized healthcare bill and cap-and-tax bill are looking more and more DOA, and his diplomacy and foreign policy decisions have been mediocre at best and an embarrassment at worst. (I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You guys gave Obama tons of credit during the ’08 campaign despite his utter lack of accomplishments, why should I expect you to treat him any different now?) And on top of that his broken campaign promises are piling up by the day.

Hell, if anything you should be even more disapproving of Obama than we are. He was your “Great White Hope” (so to speak). The guy who was supposed to represent “hope” and “change” (presumably for the better). He was supposed to be the guy who would “make America great again”. But not only has he utterly failed to do that, things actually seem to be going steadily downhill since his election, and the list of all the promises Obama made to you and subsequently broke is as long as my leg. Yet still you claim you approve of him.

In case you’ve forgotten, we didn’t do this with George W. Bush. When Bush broke his promises by ramping up government spending, abandoning Social Security reform, and signing off on unconstitutional left-wing legislation like NCLB and Amnesty, we called him out on it. We registered our disapproval. (Indeed, the MSM never shied away from publicizing Bush’s low approval rates from self-identified Republicans as “proof” of what a terrible President he was.) So I guess the real question is, why do you still approve of Barack Obama at all? By every metric that exists he has failed at what he set out to do at the start of his term, and on top of that he’s broken more of his promises to you than I can list here without eating up John’s bandwidth. Logically, you should be joining us in voicing your abject disapproval of Barack Obama. Or at least not bothering to defend him when we do so. Yet not only do you continue to defend him, you claim to approve of the job he’s been doing. You certainly can’t point to any act of policy by Barack Obama that justifies this kind of approval, so why do you continue to approve of him?

I submit that the only possible reason is his race. He’s a powerful black man and as a liberal you cannot allow a powerful black man to be recognized as a failure. To do so would undermine your entire worldview and strengthen ours. A failed black President would be the ultimate proof that race is irrelevant to success and only actions matter. And that would spell the slow death of race-based liberal programs like Affirmative Action. If race doesn’t matter and actions are all that count, then maintaining “diversity” in the workplace or in government is no longer a legitimate concern.

Hawkins is not talking about that statistic of those who disapprove of Obama, just not so “strongly,” but rather those who actually positively approve of Obama’s overall job performance.

Now you’re just being stupid on purpose.

John is NOT talking about “those who actually positively approve” of the job Obama has been doing. He is talking about, quote, “Barack Obama’s approval rating”. Furthermore, he is talking about Obama’s overall approval rate, i.e. his approval rate based on the opinions of the country as a whole. By contrast, you are talking about his approval rate among conservatives. It’s been a long time since I took Statistics, but I believe the term for that is called “cooking the books”. You are intentionally altering the parameters of the game to obtain a result you (think) supports your argument.

But then, you only see what you want to see, don’t you Huck?