How do you respond to Pearlstein’s other criticisms? Or do you generally agree with him perhaps?
If a site actually pushes out garbage stuff to its readers directly, then that’s terrible… but the site he mentioned doing that is Newsmax… which I already regarded as terrible, so it’s not really anything new to me.
I think some of his statements about how Romney is a huge liar ended up falling kind of flat for me. Obama’s campaign lies too. The Washington Post pointed out some clear lies that Obama’s campaign was mailing out in Virginia, just yesterday. Here’s a big list of the worst lies from both sides throughout the campaign so far.
I’m sure that I’m gonna get shouted down now, for “trying to draw false equivalence”, but whatever. I don’t care that Romney “lies more” or whatever. I do not trust either campaign. I think they are lying. But, of course, I’m evil and/or stupid.
The reality is this… I still, believe it or not (I’m sure you do not) don’t know who I’m voting for next week. I do not really like either candidate. I worry about what what might happen if Obamacare is repealed, because I have loved ones who would be hurt by removing all of it… and yet, at the same time, I don’t really like it. Given a lack of a Romney plan, I realize that the alternative to the current plan could certainly be worse. Honestly, I feel like both candidates fail here, because no one is addressing the real problem of skyrocketing costs. But some aspects of Obama’s current system, that protect people with pre-existing conditions, is important enough to me the merit my consideration.
But the biggest thing that makes me question the idea of voting for Obama, is that I really have zero faith that he can actually make things better. I don’t think he’s a terrible person… I don’t think he wants to destroy the country, or institute Sharia law, or whatever crazy stuff folks say about him.
I just can’t find it in my heart to believe that he’s gonna make anything better. I’m sure he WANTS to, but I don’t believe he can. Even if you believe that everything is the republicans’ fault, and they are just obstructionists and don’t let the President do all the stuff he wants to do… that’s how it’s gonna be for the next four years too then. It does not appear that the Democrats are gonna somehow seize both houses of congress. So, Obama will just be stuck in the same boat as he was this term.
If Obama couldn’t get the republicans to work with him the last 4 yeas, then he won’t be able to get them to work with him in the next 4 years either. So why should I vote for him? To watch another 4 years of incompetent governing, with both parties locked in a standstill, pointing fingers at each other? That is not appealing to me.
So I may not vote for Obama… but it’s not because I have been duped by the republicans… it’s not because I hate poor people, or want to murder and eat babies. Or possibly make bombs out of babies that I drop on other babies to kill them. It’s because I’m not feeling that Obama has made things significantly better since his election.
Folks can list a bunch of things that go on the “awesome stuff that Obama did” list all they want, but the reality is that things do not feel better than they did 4 years ago, and that makes me question voting for an incumbent. I don’t like how our political system exists currently. It has me very disillusioned.
Folks can do what they’re doing here, and blame everything on “the other guys”, but I think that’s what has gotten us where we are today. It’s what lets the parties avoid any kind of compromise or negotiation, because demonizing the other party lets them argue that not working with them is a good thing. That doing nothing is better than making a deal with the devil.