100 days since Aretha's hat; How's the nation fared? Your chance to vote

 

Today is the 100th day since the nation experienced Aretha Franklin's huge hat.

Crime and drinking rates are back to normal. Crowds on the mall have dwindled. The Washington Nationals, an alleged major league baseball team, have lost five of the last six games. Numerous seniors have postponed retirement after reading their 401(k) statements.

Timothy Geithner, Kathleen Sebelius, Tom Daschle and Hilda Solis' husband are finally up-to-date on their taxes, which is nice and democratic. But automakers have tanked; Pontiac's been euthanized. And unemployment and the projected national debt have soared since she sang. Oh, and China's reaping immense interest income on its loans over here.

The pundits have all had their chance -- actually, several chances each, with more to come all day and after tonight's news conference -- to punditize on these 14+ whole weeks. So now it's your turn. Vote here and feel free to leave copious comments below. See how your feelings match others.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Vote Here

Comments

[JM Hanes]

I sure could have used an "all of the above" option when I got to what I like least!

[Mike in Shanghai]

As much as conservatives are complaining I haven't heard/seen much in terms of alternative solutions to the miraid problems facing the nation. Money needs to be spent to revitalize the economy and create jobs, Iraq was the wrong war to begin with and moving troops to Afghanistan will do much more for our long-term national security interests and ignoring Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs are not going to make them go away.

Maybe instead of saying what a bad job Obama is doing conservatives should offer an alternative plan. Dialogue instead of just yelling "no" over and over again for the next 2,820 days.

[kim]

He's behaving exactly as the son of a graduate of Patrice Lumumba University would, backed by the most stealthy transnationalists. I wanta see his Daddy's transcripts.
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[Pom Pom Girl]

On Day 100 Get To Know Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel is Barack Obamas Chief of Staff and you ask yourself what do we know about this person, honored as his first Key appointment. He is a congressman but is foremost a prominent fund raiser and campaign organizer. He is well known for his intensity which comes to the fore in the following incidents
- He reportedly told British Prime Minister Tony Blair, prior to Blair appearing in public with Clinton for the first time after the Lewinsky scandal, "This is important. Don't f--- it up." (The Guardian Unlimited (November 10, 2006), p. 18.)
- He is said to have "mailed a rotting fish to a former coworker after the two parted ways." ( JTA.)
- On the night after the 1996 election, "Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! .. Dead! ... Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name." (Rolling Stone)
He also has had some run ins with scandal:
- An article from 2006 raised speculation regarding a possible connection between Emanuel's Congressional election success and convicted former Chicago water department boss Don Tomczak.(CNN)
- USA Today reported in January 2007 that Emanuel failed to disclose that he was an officer of a family charity, a violation of law requiring members of Congress to report non-profit leadership roles.
So in his first Cabinet pick, Obama again shirked the character issue by tying himself to yet another flawed character from Illinois.

[Corey]

Wow... people have no confidence in Obama in a liberal newspaper... I thought the conservative sites didn't like him, it turns out the liberals don't like him so much anymore either.... Hopefully the collapse of both the Republican and Democrat parties will happen sooner rather than later, both parties keep screwing up our country more and more.

[Capitalist]

Socialism sucks and it's going to get worse. There were many better alternative solutions but the Obama/Pelosi/Frank/Reid agenda was to get *their* money and *their* programs railroaded through no matter at what cost and they didn't want to hear alternative ideas. Notice how Pelosi, Reid and Frank are all but quiet now? They GOT their money. Yea! they won, good for them. Now everyone else gets to pay for years to come.

[jim]

If you havn't heard/seen any alternatives maybe you should choose other sources for news than MSNBC ;-). My congressman (Paul Ryan, WI) has put forth different budget proposals. But the media doesn't seem to notice. Remember much of what BO has done is against what he campaigned on. Bush's deficits (400 billion) were to hi his 1.5 Trillion are ok?

[greg]

It's interesting to see the results of this poll, which is a far cry from the swooning, fawning and gushing being done by the national media. Do you think they are just a bit out of touch with reality, or are they still in full campaign mode, trying to drag him across the finish line. I don't know many people who have much good to say about his performance so far. 0bama is a complete joke when it comes to speeches, he can't even get it right using his teleprompter. Essentially, he has no idea what he is talking about so when there is a malfunction he just stands there looking stupid. Where's this great orator the media were all talking about?

[Erik]

Conservatives and other intelligent types have offered numerous alternatives.

Don't bail out failures.

Don't spend trillions of taxpayer dollars (punishing success) to reward abject failure by bailing out failed banks, brokers and manufacturers.

It was liberal policy (the CRA, Fannie/Freddie and a holy host of other counterproductive and counter-intuitive programs) that caused this crisis. What makes anyone think that liberals have any chance of fixing what they broke?

The Constitution starts with We The People. So does the nation. So does success.

Lower taxes, cut programs and get the government out of the way.

We The People will take care of the rest.

[Peter Sandness]

The reason you haven't heard any of the alternatives offerred is that the MSM is in the tank for zero and covering for his and congresses duplicity. Transparency? Fiscal responsibility? Bipartisanship? None of these have existed since January 20th.

[Mike in Bremerton]

Mike in Shanghai - the conservatives ARE offering alternatives. But the socialists, and the supporting Lame Stream Media are not listening and engaging in a meaningful dialog. Congress, under control by extreme leftists, have effectively shut off debate. It is hard to get any message out about conservative alternatives, because these messages are being blocked.

Recall that in 1981, Ronald Reagan inherited a far worse economy, with double-digit inflation and unemployment and interest rates. Conservative policies healed the economy, and Reagan DIDN'T grow the government. 3 years later, our economy was in good shape, and continued to grow and perform far above all other countries in the world for the next 25 years.

But Barack Obama and the socialist Congress will repeat the mistakes of the liberal Republican Hoover, followed by the socialist policies of FDR, and the result can be an economy that tanks for 20 plus years.

The choice is readily apparent, but it is equally apparent that the people have chosen socialism rather than freedom. We will all pay the price for our stupidity!

[MayBee]

I really thought he would do a better job of crafting policy taking various points of view into consideration. While he can talk about different points of view, in practice he hands things over to Pelosi who only cares about her own. He also mischaracterizes the arguments against him (there are those who say we should do nothing but lower taxes....
there are those who say we shouldn't pay for science).

So all in all, more disappointing than anything else.

[Semper Fi]

Mike in Shanghai:

When house Republicans offered alternatives the arrogant in chief said "I won" and "I will always trump that" then shot them down.

All you libs did nothing but whine like spoiled girls for 8 years and worse trashed our troops and aided the enemy.

Until you filthy libs apologize for all that I don't want to hear your ignorant complaints. How fitting you're in China, the leftist paradise.

[JM Hanes]

Mike in Shanghai:

"Maybe instead of saying what a bad job Obama is doing conservatives should offer an alternative plan."

LOL! Being the party of No plans worked out pretty well for the Democrats -- even after they won back the House in 2006.

[WebmistressEMC]

I see the TeamSarah.org Palinbots have arrived, signed in with their handful of ISP IDs, and multiple-voted.

In other words, the poll is now worthless.

[Joe in Cincinnati]

webmistressEMC;

Aw, you're just jealous because you are the first moveon.org Obamabot to find this poll. That's unusual, too, for you. Your comments float on left wing newspaper sites all over the country.

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The poll over at CNN (where left wing moonbats always arrive first) is much friendlier to Obama than the crowd here, so far. Presumably, webmistressEMC hasn't voted over there more than 100 times....

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Clinton was castrated politically by public rejection of his policies and actions over his first two years. Both houses of Congress were turned over to the opposition party. A political tsunami of popular disgust with Obama and his posse appears likely to sweep large numbers of Democrats out of Congress in 2010. By January 2011 Obama may be reduced to veto after veto against legislation from a new Republican majority bent on undoing in one year every single thing Obama did in two.

That won't get us back the taxpayer dollars Obama has already wasted.

[Lola]

There is not one person I know, either Democrat or republican that agrees with 90% of what the Obama administration is doing. And I know alot of people. It's just sad...and abyssmal this administration so far. And Congress is even worse.

[Beth Barnat]

To Webmistress EMC:

You said: I see the TeamSarah.org Palinbots have arrived, signed in with their handful of ISP IDs, and multiple-voted.

In other words, the poll is now worthless.

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You can only vote once. Try it.

For all of you who voted for Obama's hope and change ... thanks alot for voting for a sociolist/communist who has no experience, no loyalty to our country, no character and absolutely no idea what he's doing. He is dedicated to only two things: the destruction of our great country as we have known it, and the continuous feeding of his gigantic ego.

[Bill Ryan]

Who took this poll. It looks like all the answers are from Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter with help from Hannity. Ultra conservatives got us in this mess in the first place.

[jessica copeland]

x

[Beth Coleman]

Promises, promises, who is the Obama administration really working for. It's not the people, as far as I can tell. He is too young, too arrogant and obviously a puppet. I'm so deeply dissapointed. It's truly frightening.