On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 5:38 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I don't think this last point is particularly accurate. President Obama > just > > gave a speech about it this week, > > I freely concede I don't pay attention to Obama speeches. Glad he said > something about it; don't expect any promise he might have made about > it to ever be kept. I am not out to persuade anyone to change their view of any politician. But I think there is a common, with all due respect rather lazy, approach to government. President Obama can not promise to pass gun control legislation, since he is the president, not a majority of elected representatives in both the House and Senate. He can promise to veto any bill that increases access to guns, and then if he signs such a bill you can accuse him of not keeping his promise. I don't think that has happened yet, but if it has or it does, then the criticism would be accurate. If a president only gives speeches and spends political capital on proposals that he is sure will pass congress, then he is not really leading. If he wants to lead, then he has to take the very real risk that a number of the things he proposes will fail to pass congress. Critics can accuse him of being ineffectual or incompetent (though that would probably require some description of some plausible set of actions he could have taken, but did not, that would have been more effective). But critics can not accuse a president of failing to keep a promise because congress controlled by the other party refused to pass legislation. As of today, I think there is a good chance that the President will wind up getting a bill that he can sign that will do more to increase gun regulations than most "experts" thought he had a realistic chance of getting when he raised the issue in his Inauguration speech. That this will be significantly less than a majority of Americans believe is necessary is a comment on how American democracy works, but not on the commitment of the politicians who first raised this issue to get things done. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
