re: #149 cliffster

Good speech, but I doubt it will change many (if any) minds about Iraq, the President himself, or the economic mess facing the country.

It was nice to see him deal with the thorny issue of the Iraq withdrawal and end of what he’s calling combat operations in Iraq. That we’ve still got 50,000 troops in Iraq in an advisory role (one that not only provides advise, but buttresses and supports the Iraqi military and helps with security by its very presence) means that we’re far from done with Iraq - or military operations in Iraq.

It’s also curious that Obama took the “neocon” (or my neoliberal) position:

Today, old adversaries are at peace, and emerging democracies are potential partners. New markets for our goods stretch from Asia to the Americas. A new push for peace in the Middle East will begin here tomorrow. Billions of young people want to move beyond the shackles of poverty and conflict. As the leader of the free world, America will do more than just defeat on the battlefield those who offer hatred and destruction — we will also lead among those who are willing to work together to expand freedom and opportunity for all people.

As far as his economic policy is concerned, the military ops did not cause a real estate bubble, and they didn’t cause a runup in Wall Street - both of which popped from 2007 onwards. The President seems to think that had we not gone to war in Iraq that we would have spent a trillion dollars on other stuff (like health care reform). I don’t have a time machine to reveal alternative futures and what would have been done with the money - but that spending was done in the name of national defense and there’s no reason to think that it would have been spent on a massive health care overhaul. It would have simply meant a far smaller deficit at this point (and at a time when folks like Krugman are calling for still more stimulus and even greater spending— deficit spending).

No, what we need is to let the real estate market sort itself out without further distortions - like the possibility that the Administration is considering yet another homeowner tax credit like the one that just expired. Real estate prices need to continue coming down in some markets and adjust to current market conditions - not temporary goosing of sales that rob future quarters of sales.