What America Needs to Return to Normalcy

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I have been a lurker for sometime, but even I had to sign up and say something on this massive delusional post by the OP.

Seriously, Mitt Romney is going to restore the "America" brand around the world, the same man who waffles on simple domestic issues like the Ohio union bill, and he some how is going to be a strong leader?

Give me a break! Romney is a rich, pandering fraud who will say anything to get elected. He isn't strong or a decisive leader, he is a good-looking rich guy who believes who only core belief is "I should be president".

Barack Obama may not the strongest leader, but Christ I would take my chances with him then Willard.

Agreed.

First Obama has a 200,000 campaign rally in Berlin as a senator!  Next he collects a Nobel Peace Prize then went on to take out Bin Laden and a slew of other baddies.  After that he toppled Gaddafi without losing a single US soldier.  He sealed the deal on the South Korea trade pact.  He sealed the deal on the Columbia trade pact.  Iraq war ended.  I could go on.

I wonder what "restoration" needs to go on with the American brand?   The world is handing our president a Nobel Prize and having huge rallies in his honor.  What more do Republicans want?

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The issues that effect the need for a return to normalicy are far deeper than many here understand. It will require this nation to take a really long look at herself. The United States has been in an identity crises for a generation or better. To quote President Reagan, " Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves." This goes far beyond the dichotomy of our left-right paradigm. Many of our cherished bulwarks of liberty are in such danger that no one man can lead the way back.

Can you translate that in English please?

Reagan was full of chit.

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I have been a lurker for sometime, but even I had to sign up and say something on this massive delusional post by the OP.

Seriously, Mitt Romney is going to restore the "America" brand around the world, the same man who waffles on simple domestic issues like the Ohio union bill, and he some how is going to be a strong leader?

Give me a break! Romney is a rich, pandering fraud who will say anything to get elected. He isn't strong or a decisive leader, he is a good-looking rich guy who believes who only core belief is "I should be president".

Barack Obama may not the strongest leader, but Christ I would take my chances with him then Willard.

Agreed.

First Obama has a 200,000 campaign rally in Berlin as a senator!  Next he collects a Nobel Peace Prize then went on to take out Bin Laden and a slew of other baddies.  After that he toppled Gaddafi without losing a single US soldier.  He sealed the deal on the South Korea trade pact.  He sealed the deal on the Columbia trade pact.  Iraq war ended.  I could go on.

I wonder what "restoration" needs to go on with the American brand?   The world is handing our president a Nobel Prize and having huge rallies in his honor.  What more do Republicans want?

And you certainly have not had private conversations with foreigners abroad as I have, who are laughing at America's troubles and who think Obama is great because America is on the decline and he has been ineffective in helping to turn the tide.

My girlfriend is European.  We have a lot of very private conversations.

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I have been a lurker for sometime, but even I had to sign up and say something on this massive delusional post by the OP.

Seriously, Mitt Romney is going to restore the "America" brand around the world, the same man who waffles on simple domestic issues like the Ohio union bill, and he some how is going to be a strong leader?

Give me a break! Romney is a rich, pandering fraud who will say anything to get elected. He isn't strong or a decisive leader, he is a good-looking rich guy who believes who only core belief is "I should be president".

Barack Obama may not the strongest leader, but Christ I would take my chances with him then Willard.

Agreed.

First Obama has a 200,000 campaign rally in Berlin as a senator!  Next he collects a Nobel Peace Prize then went on to take out Bin Laden and a slew of other baddies.  After that he toppled Gaddafi without losing a single US soldier.  He sealed the deal on the South Korea trade pact.  He sealed the deal on the Columbia trade pact.  Iraq war ended.  I could go on.

I wonder what "restoration" needs to go on with the American brand?   The world is handing our president a Nobel Prize and having huge rallies in his honor.  What more do Republicans want?

And you certainly have not had private conversations with foreigners abroad as I have, who are laughing at America's troubles and who think Obama is great because America is on the decline and he has been ineffective in helping to turn the tide.

My girlfriend is European.  We have a lot of very private conversations.

I suggest increasing your sample size, and conducting your conversations off American soil.

Here is a partial picture of the degree I earned while living and working in Europe...



In case you didn't realise it you just got owned.  Please disengage from this futile line of attack and recant your obviously false statements.

By the way my current girlfriend is European, but so too was the Danish girl... and the Norwegian girl... and...  Get the picture young buck?  Frankly I wish my sample size was smaller.  I'm not old but it is time to get out of the game.  Leave some for the rest... know what I mean?

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Perhaps you need to come to the realization that we are NOT in this together

Well with that attitude...

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I am willing to cede that it is possible your conversations abroad have been more amicable than mine. However, I am not making false statements. My experience leads me to belief that Europe loves Obama because America is failing under him. I certainly do not see the level of respect among Europeans that was there for Kennedy, Reagan or Clinton. The difference between those three and Obama: Again, America is failing under Obama.

A couple of things...

First of all you experience is purely anecdotal and so was mine.

Second point Europe is not monolithic.  I spent most of my time in a relatively small part of Europe.

Having said that my experience with Europeans is they are more cynical than Americans (Europeans please feel free to jump all over me about this broad generalization and stereotype).  Although they gladly allow more government involvement in their lives they don't see politicians as gods.  For example they have much less of a desire to have a "family values" politician telling them how to raise their children.  I routinely heard Europeans say cynical things about their own politicians and sometimes our president (although that was 95% of the time comments about Bush).

I frankly find people have a lot of admiration for Obama in Europe.  I find they have sort of a love hate relationship with America.  I think Americans take things way to personally.  My European friends do not wish ill upon America and they certainly never cheer if America is not doing well.  They do think we are fat war mongers but they admire our academic and business achievements.

To be perfectly honest you are the first person I have ever heard put forth this theory that Europeans are happy that America is having problems and that they think the source of the problems is Obama.

The first person to really have an indepth conversation with me about Obama was one of my bosses in Europe he was absolutely gushing.  I found it strange that he knew so much about a state senator.  I really don't think he was happy because he was hoping in a few years Obama would be president and ruin America.  I think that is a bit far fetched.

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I had confidence that the stimulus would have been the right sort of stimulus that would produce the type of projections that were made in early 2009, but now I am beginning to think it was a boondoggle for special interests in return for support in 2008. Solyndra does not inspire a lot of confidence, and may merely be the tip of the iceberg.

As for "we could have easily gotten far worse," failure is failure, and failure should not be rewarded unless you want more failure.

Obama had his chance, failed and now it's Romney's turn.

1)  The stimulus was watered down by Republicans so it was not big enough
2)  Data that just came out a few months ago indicates the economic disastor was even bigger than we realised so even if the stimulus wasn't watered down by the Republicans it still was not big enough.

The fact of the matter is we did not do a stimulus of the appropriate size.  That does not mean an appropriately sized stimulus wouldn't work.

Any doctor will tell you if you need 10 days of antibiotics 5 days isn't going to cut it.

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Much of Europe enjoys watching America stumble and not recover like it does.

Again this is your opinion and in the years that I lived in Europe I never saw this attitude exhibited.  Perhaps some of our European posters can weigh in and tell us what they think.

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the largest fiscal stimulus in American history

Careful.

Do you mean that in real or nominal terms?  I haven't run the numbers but I smell the odious stench of someone pulling a fast one... could be wrong but I'm going to shoot from the hip anyway.