Talk:Barack Obama

FY 2015 budget request

Hi! On March 4, 2014, Obama submitted his fiscal year 2015 budget request to Congress. I've started an article about it - President Obama's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal. I was hoping other editors would be interested in improving the page and wanted to invite you to do so. I was also hoping to get other editors' input on how to insert a link or two to the article on this page, possibly in the section about economic policy? It could be something simple like:

President Barack Obama submitted his fiscal year 2015 budget request for $3.9 trillion to Congress on March 4, 2014.

Or longer with more information about what is in the proposal (there is a ton of relevant material that could be used), like:

President Barack Obama submitted his fiscal year 2015 budget request for $3.9 trillion to Congress on March 4, 2014. The president's budget proposal was described as a "populist wish list." Some of the proposed programs include more spending on pre-school education, tax credits for childless low-income workers, and most than $1 trillion in new and higher taxes. The President's proposal was also considered a "playbook" for Democrats' "election-year themes of creating jobs and narrowing the income gap between rich and poor."

As I said, there is a lot of material - defense spending, taxes, education, etc - that could be included. Does anyone have any comments on what they think this should say or where in the article it should appear? Thanks! HistoricMN44 (talk) 17:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Image description

Before someone ends up blocked for WP:3RR... Shouldn't the alt text at least identify Obama by name? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I went to WP:ALT to see exactly what the purpose of it is, but it doesn't seem to be clear on whether it should be written for an audience text-readers or for the blind, or both. So I'm not really sure atm which way this should go. Tarc (talk) 19:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Ditto. Read it and it is unclear, and different from wheat was explained earlier. Dave Dial (talk) 19:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:ALT#Importance_of_context and the Blair/Bush example? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

WP:ALT is not clear, so can we try a little common sense here? Seems right that alt text should physically describe the individual to benefit vision-impaired people, but there's no reason to leave off the person's name, nor does it have to be dumbed down. Why not say something like "Barack Obama, a middle-aged African American male, smiling and standing with his hands folded in front of a desk and two flags. He is a wearing a navy blue suit and a light blue tie with white dots." Tvoz/talk 01:24, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Cultural and political image

Regarding the sentence that says: "According to November 2013 polls, Obama's average approval rating fell to 41%, thus setting a new low for the president." This seems a bit out of place the way it is in this section. Wouldn't it make more sense to put this right after the sentence talking about his poll numbers after his second inauguration? The rest of the section details his image in foreign countries, so the sentence seems kind of wonky the way it is now. Twyfan714 (talk) 03:05, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting Facts

Barack Obama was born the year of the first freedom ride and was two years old when Martin Luther King gave his I have a dream speech. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.165.48.129 (talk) 09:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

So was my mother as they are the same age >3 months apart. Doubt my mother or Obama will remember MLK's speech from that time. Somchai Sun (talk) 10:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, even if he was old enough to remember the speech it would not be very relevant for an article about Obama as a person.--70.49.72.34 (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

No Critical Views Allowed

I just spent an hour skimming the Wiki articles of each president the US has had. These articles typically refer to actions, responses, and policies of the president, along with a description of how these events were received by the public, and how the president's popularity was affected. Notably, the article on Barack Obama is missing any information about the critical response many of his actions have received. This article reads like a campaign website, listing all of his "achievements" along with far too many legislative details, with little information about the history of how these things happened, or what resulted from them.

Of note, the section on the 2010 midterms is a single sentence, and omits any mention of WHY Obama was so unpopular in 2010, and about how his 2010 legislative policies were received. The section on the 2012 elections omits any mention of HOW he won the election, or what sort of campaign message he was leveling against his opponent. The section on "health care reform" mentions far too many legislative details (that could easily be gleaned by reading the page on PPACA), while omitting any mention of what sort of criticisms were leveled against the policy, how it has affected Obama's popularity, or how the implementation of the new health care system was handled.

Furthermore, there is no mention of the IRS targeting scandal, the Benghazi scandal, the many court cases against Obama's executive overreach, the fact that Obama was held in contempt by a federal court, the fact that Obama created the largest and most intrusive domestic surveillance operation in human history, his racially-motivated comments and policies, or the fact that he has been so widely and openly criticized as a totalitarian, a socialist, a fascist, and other labels for authoritarian philosophies. These types of facts are a major focus of the articles for previous presidents, and were certainly a dominant component of the page on George W. Bush during his presidency.

The level of president-saluting sterilization in this article is positively Orwellian. TBSchemer (talk) 00:00, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

As an example of this Orwellian cleansing, I included a series of polls showing that Obama is "the most divisive and polarizing president in history" in the first-term legacy section, and the change was rapidly reverted by Tarc. This leaves the section as a paragraph of praise from academics, with little general-public polling data. The reversion can be viewed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barack_Obama&diff=603081323&oldid=603080058 TBSchemer (talk) 01:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Far too much of your own politics is on display in those posts for your comments to be considered in any way as objective and constructive suggestions for improving the article. HiLo48 (talk) 01:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh I've tried to point out the many flaws in this article over the years and to no avail. I hope you have better luck than I did, or better than the countless accounts that have been blocked or banned over the years for pointing this out as well. JOJ ^Hutton 02:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

If someone came here with a clearly neutral point of view and made explicit, non-POV suggestions for improving the article, they might get somewhere. That is not the case with this thread. HiLo48 (talk) 02:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, your dislike of people's politics is not an argument. If you can't respond to his points you don't need to respond. —Designate (talk) 02:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

You have no idea what my political views are, and that's precisely how it should be. During the most recent presidential election campaign I was attacked by supports of both major candidates as being a supporter of the other side. I was proud of that. TBSchemer's political views are far too obvious. HiLo48 (talk) 02:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Do you have any reasonable objection to the inclusion of this poll or not? TBSchemer (talk) 02:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, this page is for discussing the article. He's discussing the article. You're discussing him. There's no policy that requires people to pretend not to have opinions and there never has been, so your complaints belong in another forum. —Designate (talk) 02:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I object to most opinion polling most of the time. People generally only want them added if they think they support their political position. The only way in which they could ever be included, IMHO, is when the precise question(s) that were asked are listed, and no editorial interpretation is made of the results. That's clearly not the case here. I suspect that the word "polarizing" was never part of the poll. As an example of misinterpretation, it could be argued that Republicans hated Obama because he was doing such a good job it made it harder for them to get rid of him. I actually don't know. Do you? So, if you must include polls.... Present the question(s). Present the results. And stop there. Better still, ignore mid-term polls. They prove nothing. HiLo48 (talk) 03:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

But if you object to most opinion polling, then doesn't that mean you also object to the polls of academics that already comprise the entire section we're discussing? Would you rather have that whole section removed? What about the need to describe the public response to the president's most influential policies, as is done in all the articles for every previous president? TBSchemer (talk) 03:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'd be happy to see most of that polling stuff gone. It looks like cherry-picking anyway. If you can find a very well run poll that truly describes the public (Which public?) response to the president's most influential policies (How will you decide which they are?), maybe we can discuss its inclusion, but only in the way I described above. Precise question(s) listed. No editorial interpretation. HiLo48 (talk) 03:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Give me a break. The edit was clearly a partisan WP:POV edit. Designate, you should take your own advice. We are not, with Wikipedia's voice, making the claims that TBSchemer wants in the article. Orwellian sterilization.....Come on now. Dave Dial (talk) 03:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

So you refuse to have any critical views included in the article on Barack Obama? You want the page to remain a discussion of how many accomplishments Obama has achieved, and how many people he has insured, and how good were the intentions of his bailout, and how many university professors he has impressed, with no mention of the results of his policies, the public response, his impact on partisan polarization, or any of his many scandals? The article, as it stands right now, is horribly WP:POV, representing the views of those who voted for the guy, while selectively omitting the facts understood by those who didn't. TBSchemer (talk) 04:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

So does anyone here have an interest in seeing this article become more of a historical account and less of a campaign page, or am I the only one? TBSchemer (talk) 15:59, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I reject your assertion that the article reads like a "campaign page". I think part of the problem here is that you seem to want to shoehorn ficticious, non-existent "scandals" and right-wing garbage into the article:

• The IRS "targeted" all political groups equally, as is part of their remit.
• Benghazi was a tragedy, not a scandal. Everything was done that could be done, and there was no coverup.
• "Executive overreach" is a right-wing canard. Obama has exercised his right to issue executive orders on far fewer occasions than recent presidents (including Bush).
• "The largest and most intrusive domestic surveillance operation in human history" was created by George W. Bush.
• What racially motivated comments/policies?
• He's been "openly criticized as a totalitarian, a socialist, a fascist, and other labels for authoritarian philosophies" only by low information voters (morons, basically) and right-wing ideologues. You can seemingly conflicting labels like "weak" and "dictatorial" to this ludicrous list of yours, if you wish.

All of these are simply nonsense, and including such limp-wristed garbage in this article would make Wikipedia into a laughing stock. There's already a wiki to satisfy your needs, and I respectfully suggest you take this stuff to there instead. -- Scjessey (talk) 19:49, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing fictitious about the events I'm describing. They were all widely reported in plenty of reliable sources.

• The IRS targeting scandal was factual enough to get its own Wikipedia article. If it's good enough for Wikipedia, it's good enough for Wikipedia. So why do you refuse to allow these crucial facts about Obama's presidency to be placed on Obama's Wiki page?
• The Obama administration "knowingly misled the country" about Benghazi, according to the reliable sources cited on the Benghazi scandal Wiki article. Why shouldn't such a significant event in his presidency be included on his page?
• Executive overreach, like taking us to war in Libya without Congressional approval, like changing by decree the legislatively-established dates of implementation for Obamacare, like the plethora of unconstitutional actions he has taken while in office. Why shouldn't such significant, abuses of power, recognized by the Supreme Court, be mentioned on this page?
• The Patriot Act did not apply to US citizens. Obama's version of the PRISM program spies on everyone. Even if you dispute this version of events, why shouldn't the fact that Obama has operated the largest domestic surveillance program in history be included on this page?
• Racially motivated comments, like those on Trayvon Martin, or his new race-based preferences program.
• Really? I think in light of all of the above, the fact that Obama has been widely, and quite accurately criticized as a [totalitarian] is quite relevant to his historical identity.

So why are you against including these facts in an article that's supposed to represent a neutral view of the history of Obama, and not just the cleansed version that his campaign staff want the world to see?

TBSchemer (talk) 03:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Legacy of first term

In the previous thread, there was a proposal agreed upon by at least two people to remove this section entirely, on the grounds that it consists entirely of cherry-picked polls, and polls are difficult to represent fairly in a WP:NPOV way. Do we have consensus on this proposal? TBSchemer (talk) 04:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

No. HiLo48 (talk) 04:59, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Why not? I thought you were the one who initially argued that polls probably shouldn't be in the article? TBSchemer (talk) 05:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Why not? Because I'm sick of your shallow, POV ridden misrepresentation of sources, and now me. I said "I'd be happy to see most of that polling stuff gone." You now say that I've agreed with you to remove this section entirely. There is a significant difference. HiLo48 (talk) 06:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Which polls would you keep, and which would you throw out? TBSchemer (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)