Busting The Myths About The President

President Barack Obama speaks about manufacturing and jobs during a visit to Intel Corporation's Ocotillo facility Wednesday. (AP)

A recent Washington Post opinion piece picks at what the author calls “Five myths about Barack Obama.”

Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Alter writes in the Washington Post that:

Barack Obama’s rise in politics was so rapid, and his background so unusual, that he was immediately subjected to malicious myths — from the bogus story that he was raised Muslim to the lie that he wasn’t born in the United States.

Alter says there are five genuine misconceptions about the presidency:

That Obama is a socialist
That he’s a tool of Wall Street
That he’s an effective public speaker
That his stimulus package failed
That he’s a weak leader

Guest:

Jonathan Alter, columnist for Bloomberg View, author of “The Promise: President Obama, Year One”

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

J Frog

Stimulus…..Hypothetically, I suppose funding a “Bridge to Nowhere” would create jobs. Does that mean it “works”? Maybe in the very narrow sense of the word. The question is: Was the Stimulus plan good stewardship of our resources? Firstly, it was sold to us as being an infrastructure plan. That was what the infamous “shovel ready” was all about. It was supposed to be about fixing aging roads, bridges, sewer systems, etc. not just your run-of-the-mill transportation bill. Instead, much of it temporarily filled “holes” in State budgets. The stimulus money for states is now gone. Face it, the Stimulus plan was not good stewardship of our resources. It didn’t “work”.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U2EYOEVDQVCRLTSIDRHXBDMNR4 isafakir
  
  it produced at the minimum a million jobs and stopped the decline into a two decade deflation spiral, and only barely. we still face severe deflation forces and a seriously declining middle class. what it should have been was sold out to the opposition whose avowed purpose was government takeover by the plutocracy. at whatever cost. so to say it didn’t work is a perversion of history.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U2EYOEVDQVCRLTSIDRHXBDMNR4 isafakir
  
  at best it created nearly 3 million jobs and saved the republic.
- Enrique T
  
  J Frog, I don’t think you are completely informed in what you are talking about. The “bridge to nowhere” was a project from 2004 to connect Ketchikan, AK to their airport. Not really ‘nowhere.’ The stimulus in 2009, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was in part a transportation bill, but also included relief to states, money towards healthcare and education. The largest portion of the stimulus went to tax cuts. It’s something people tend to skip over, that it had 288 billion in breaks for everyone.
  - J Frog
    
    I didn’t say “Bridge to Nowhere” was included in the stimulus bill. That is why I used the word “hypothetically”. I was trying to point out that just because we are spending money and creating jobs doesn’t mean it is a best use of funds.
Chris B in San Diego

I think President Obama is doing a great job. I’m shocked that people can literally make up stories about him and act as if they are real. Let’s give him a chance to do his job and focus on issues that will change our economy and allow for clean energy along the way.
Thanks, Chris in San Diego, CA
- Anonymous
  
  Okay, sure! In fact, lets give him another TRILLION tax dollars to dump into the Potomac! (sarcasm font)
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_U2EYOEVDQVCRLTSIDRHXBDMNR4 isafakir

to say the obama did not betray us ignores the fact that he is the one who chose to pack the white house with goldman sachs graduates and plutocracy wannabees like emanuel. health care passed despite obama’s deliberate systematic sabotage by democrats in congress. frank’s committee was people with anti-consumer blue dogs and wall street reform was gutted. DADT and DOMA were repealed/suspended by Republicans and LGTB progressive in alliance with progressive democrats. woman’s choice was buried forever by back room deals with a foreign power in the Vatican. and health care reform was DOA on November 5 2008. republican health care was passed by reid and pelosi and progressives after the WH ordered pelosi to kill it. the loss of kennedy’s seat and the largest tsunami of anti-democratic fascism in USA history since andrew jackson was as foreseeable as acar crash if you are driving with your eyes closed while arguing with your ex-wife on a cell phone. he wasn’t in the driver’s seat. he was sitting in the back imagining the chauffer was listening. hand’s off government doesn’t work. his kind of government was what gave us hitler. now we have boner. and a whole slew of gauleiters as eager to destroy each other as they are to romneyize the usa and take the profit.
Digitalnorm

The problem many people on the left have is their failure to separate campaign rhetoric from actual intent. It was exciting for the left when Obama said he was going to change the way the political game was played in Washington. He does not cram his accomplishments down the throats of the GOP and he doesn’t pander to his base, two changes from politics as usual that don’t appeal to an excitement-crazed, reality-TV-watching public, but that are significant changes. His accomplishments with financial regulation, don’t-ask-don’t-tell repeal and, chiefly, health care legislation will withstand the test of time and as the nation (hopefully) becomes more progressive in the future, will stand as testaments to his far-sightedness and level headed leadership style. Presumably, if the left and the right are both complaining noisily about the actions of Obama, that means he has found a super-partisan way of negotiating the rocky waters of governance.
Randall Neukam

Hello — the story was fine, and you do such a good job in exploring Obama-related issues that I hope you’ll consider some more substantive, disturbing questions about the progressive promise of his presidency that now seems betrayed

Specifically, the following articles, one by Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/) and the other by Matt Stoller (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/matt-stoller-why-ron-paul-challenges-liberals.html).

For a liberal like myself, there is a glaring, painful gap between the promise and the reality of Obama’s presidency, and it isn’t around the edges, but at the heart of key economic and civil principles that liberalism holds dear.
Couple this with the lack of substantive, issue-oriented debates and
the forced-choice formula of 2-party politics (a, b, or
none-of-the-above), and at best I walk away disillusioned, at worst so
much more cynically exasperated that I want to just keep walking.

In any event, Robin is one of those rare exploratory lights in the electoral swamp that treats the contest as more than a horse-race. Probing by her would give these considerations a higher profile than currently; hearing any response by the Obama administration would be welcome.
Guest

I am assuming that the Obama campaign paid for this advertisement with Jonathan Alter on NPR? This is not news, this is propaganda. It is well done propaganda, no doubt, but NPRs guise of impartiality strikes again. Or was NPR fooled?
jaime

Jonathan Alter? Seriously? What a waste of time.