Questions Inside Obama's Presidency Made Me Ask

Jordan Loftin 
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"He's the first Nobel peace prize winner with a kill list" (repeated twice)

-What Nobel prize did he win? What do they mean by kill list?

*He was a state legislature 4 years before presidency
*The president making promises he can't keep: "we will get through the worst financial/economic crisis in America"
*"he had to start thinking about this crisis the day after he was elected"... Yeah, work starts early and they are constantly busy

-Do republicans/democrats normally get together to "take on" the president of the opposite political beliefs?

*weird.. why do the president and First Lady dance in front of everyone?
*"what does Obama need to do?" -news lady.. Everyone depends on the president and puts blame on the president immediately when something goes wrong
*Advertising by visibility and going to the senate go trying and sell his argument to the republicans representatives
*roll call votes!!! bills can pass without any minority vote at all
*"being president is understanding the constraints and working the system rather than hanging the system"
*political advisors have a lot of influence

-Is Obama's leadership style more like Clinton's chaotic style or Bush's too decisive style? If neither, what is his leadership style? Seems chaotic...

*loans have strings attached
*advisors can be divided on decision making

-What did they mean by "things have a way of slowing down in congress"?

-What is a summer recess for congress?

*HE HAS ONLY BEEN IN OFFICE FOR 8 MONTHS AND: health care reform stalled, bipartisanship had collapsed, and there was still trouble with the economy
*this is a very stressful job, can you imagine getting "you lie" yelled at you in front of thousands of people?
*define caucus: a group of people with shared concerns within a political party
*one arena the president can act on on his own: military
*dealing with congress is simply too difficult, along with understanding congress
*"it was the right thing to do" -Obama he was thinking he is a delegate or trustee

*national security team: gives their advice on security issues and deal with security crisis: Members à vp, p, and sec. of state and defense

-Only the president could make the final decision on whether to send troops? I thought that was the Patriot Act.. With consent of congress??

-debt ceiling? What does that mean?

*leaders (speaker of the house and the president, etc) must be deal makers and able to persuade

*define bipartisan: of or involving the agreement or cooperation of two political parties that usually oppose each other's policies.

-Grand deal/bargain?

*”dealing with the white house is like dealing with a bowl of jello” –boehner

            -“refuse to be serious”

*Grand bargain failed and was turned to the fiscal cliff

*”if I sad the sky was blue, they said no.” – Obama talking about the republican party trying to get Obama to fail (wow)

*incumbents normally do better the second time around, “he did worse”

*his big line “we are the united states of America!!”