Talk:Barack Obama/Sandbox

Proposal to Revise the Lede
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to occupy the office of President. He served as the junior United States Senator from Illinois from January 2005 until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for United States Senate in 2004. His victory, from a crowded field, in the March 2004 Democratic primary raised his visibility. His prime-time televised keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004 made him a rising star nationally in the Democratic Party. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2004 by the largest margin in the history of Illinois.

He began his run for the presidency in February 2007. After a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination, becoming the first major party African American candidate for president. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.

Proposal to expand the Presidency section
Discussion is at Talk:Barack Obama; we'll refine the text here until we have consensus. CouldOughta (talk) 15:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

First Days
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President, and Joe Biden as Vice President, took place on January 20, 2009. In his first few days in office Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, and ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp "as soon as practicable and no later than" January 2010. Obama also reduced the secrecy given to presidential records and changed procedures to promote disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The president also reversed George W. Bush's ban on federal funding to foreign establishments that allow abortions (known as the Mexico City Policy and referred to by critics as the "Global Gag Rule").

Domestic Policy
On January 29, 2009 President Obama signed his first bill into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009,  which eased the requirements for filing employment discrimination lawsuits. Five days later he signed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIP) to cover an additional 4 million children currently uninsured.

In March 2009, Obama repealed a Bush-era policy that prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fund research on new lines of embryonic stem cells. Although such research had been a matter of debate, Obama stated that he believed "sound science and moral values...are not inconsistent," and that we have "the humanity and conscience" to pursue this reasearch responsibly, pledging to develop "strict guidelines" to ensure that.

On May 26, 2009, Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter. If confirmed, Sotomayor would become the first Hispanic to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. She would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as one of two women on the nine-member bench, and the third woman in the history of the court.

Economic Management
On February 17, 2009, Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening worldwide recession. Obama made a high-profile visit to Capitol Hill to engage with Congressional Republicans, but the bill ultimately passed with the support of only three Republican senators. The act includes increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals, which is being distributed over the course of several years, with about 25% due by the end of 2009. In June, Obama, unsatisfied with the pace of the investment, called on his cabinet to accelerate the spending over the next weeks.

In March, Obama's Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, took further steps to manage the financial crisis, including the Public-Private Investment Program which could buy up to $2 trillion in depreciated real estate assets that were weighing down stock valuations, freezing the credit market and delaying the economic recovery. The New York Times noted that "(i)nvestors reacted ecstatically, with all of the major stock indexes soaring as soon as the markets opened." Along with spending and loan guarantees from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, about $11.5 trillion had been authorized by the Bush and Obama administrations, with $2.7 trillion actually spent by the end of June 2009.

Obama intervened in the troubled automotive industry in March, renewing loans for General Motors and Chrysler Corporation to continue operations while reorganizing. Over the following months the White House set terms for both firms' bankruptcies, including the sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat and a reorganization of GM giving the U.S. government a 60% equity stake in the company.

Foreign Policy
In February and March Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made separate overseas trips to announce a "new era" in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe, using the terms "break" and "reset" to signal major changes from the policies of the preceding administration. Obama's granting of his first television interview as President to an Arabic cable network, Al-Arabiya, was seen as an attempt to reach out to Arab leaders.

On March 19, Obama continued his outreach to the Muslim world, releasing a New Year's video message to the people and government of Iran. This attempt at outreach was rebuffed by the Iranian leadership. In April, Obama gave a speech in Ankara, Turkey which was well received by many Arab governments. On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt calling for a "new beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States and promoting Middle East peace.

North Korea policy was a complex challenge for the Obama administration during its first few months. The country tested a long-range rocket on the eve of Obama's speech in Ankara in April, conducted an underground nuclear test in May, and sentenced two unauthorized American journalists to 12 years' hard labor in June of 2009.

Iraq and Afghanistan War
During his presidential transition, President-Elect Obama announced that he would retain the incumbent Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, in his own Cabinet.

Early in his presidency Obama moved to change U.S. war strategy by increasing troop strength in Afghanistan and reducing troop levels in Iraq. On February 18, 2009 he announced that the U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan would be boosted by 17,000, asserting that the increase was necessary to "stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan", an area he said had not received the "strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires".

On February 27, Obama declared that combat operations would end in Iraq within 18 months. His remarks were made to a group of Marines preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. Obama said, "Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end."

On May 11, the president replaced his military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, with former Special Forces commander Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, believing that Gen. McChrystal's Special Forces experience would facilitate the use of counterinsurgency tactics in the war.

Creation of page
I've taken the liberty of creating the Sandbox page by moving User:CouldOughta's proposal for expanding the Presidency section there. I've left the identical material on this talk page (where it was originally posted) for the time being, and request that if CouldOughta feels there is no value to preserving the edit history thus far, he would delete it from this page (for redundancy) so discussions on proposals may take place here. I commend CO for diving in and making the effort. Hopefully we'll get some constructive criticism here and, if editors agree with the principle of expansion at this time, we can move toward adding what we come up with here to the article. Abrazame (talk) 14:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Abrazame. I've deleted the original edit, and updated the note at the top to reflect this being the talk page for the sandbox instead of the sandbox itself. CouldOughta (talk) 05:18, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I am not sure why this is necessary. The text in the sandbox is largely what is in the Obama articles already, but devoid of any neutrality.  Can someone help me understand why we wouldn't just discuss these thinks on the talk page of the relevant Obama article, reach consensus (or not) and move on with the edits?  QueenofBattle (talk) 15:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure it's necessary either, but it's a reasonable way to approach refining sections of the article, so we might as well try it out.CouldOughta (talk) 05:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Question: Should we put a "purpose of this page" box on the top of the sandbox page as well as this page? I think it would be a good idea. CouldOughta (talk) 06:00, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I was in error in moving this to the Barack Obama/Sandbox main page, and the editor who created this page, User:CouldOughta, had done so correctly. I'm restoring the sandbox work here, which on the main page had only one minor edit, my own.  It seems the best place to discuss the Sandbox developments would not be on the Sandbox talk page, illogically, but on the far more appropriate Talk:Barack Obama page.  This may satisfy the objection by QueenofBattle.  So, in future, most discussions about work here should take place on Talk:Barack Obama.  If this makes sense to everybody, the section title there will link to here and we can put a link here at the head or foot of the sandbox section to the talk section there.  We can copy this to the Talk:Barack Obama or delete it or whatever.  Sorry for any trouble or confusion caused by my misunderstanding.  It still makes no sense to me from the standpoint of logic (or from a technical standpoint—can't they create a Sandbox that is in talk space and not article space and yet isn't called talk and doesn't have an article page that no one must set foot upon lest they shuttle the whole place to a new dimension?), but rules is rules.  Abrazame (talk) 06:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Presidency Section revisions
The domestic revisions reflect the need to mention something about the later stimulus act and the intervention in the auto industry, both encyclopedia-worthy events. It all comes largely from the Presidency article. On the war side, the change in generals reflects the fact that Obama has a preferred war strategy and is taking steps to implement it. Obama has made two encyclopedia-worthy Cabinet picks, the incumbent (i.e. Republican-nominated) Defense Secretary, and a political rival as Secretary of State. Both should be included, but the State pick can wait until we have a Foreign Policy section separate from the war. So far, not enough encyclopedia-worthy foreign policy has been accomplished to merit a section. I eliminated the 100 Days heading in favor of an First Days section-- it fit the flow of history better. CouldOughta (talk) 05:58, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

We've moved further discussion to Talk:Barack Obama. The comment above has been copied there. CouldOughta (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This section lacks any discussion of his appointments and administration including the tax issues that arose. Some indication of the rising unemployment rate should probably be included. And the closing of Guantanamo needs to clarify the plan for how to deal with the inmates. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Collapsed section 6-24-09 CouldOughta (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Presidency Section and the Sandbox, again
I was about to move the Presidency section text from the Sandbox to the main article, when someone put some good content in the article. I've transcribed the new stuff into the Sandbox text with minor revisions. However, to get it to flow, I had to put in the Domestic Policy and Foreign Policy sections we've [actually, I've] talked about. My primary original input (not original research, just new text) is in the Foreign Policy section. It also will be the part that will get the preponderance of POV complaints, I'm guessing-- I tried to be NPOV but the language may sound POVish. Also, please critique the citations. I'll be prompter in moving the text to the article once we have consensus. CouldOughta (talk) 03:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Criticizing my own input: There's slightly too much on the early legislation, but I'd propose not thinning it out until the presidency develops some more substance. "Foreign Policy" could benefit from mention of Obama's high early popularity ratings overseas, but the edits would be contentious so I'd rather wait until we have the section in place. I couldn't figure a better end to the North Korea part-- we're kind of in the middle of Obama's (and the world's) response, so I just said "it's a problem" and left it at that. CouldOughta (talk) 04:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing much response. I'll give it a few more hours, then assume consensus and move the new text to the article page. 71.179.10.162 (talk) 01:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I've got a few pages open at the moment and then have to run but I'll give it a look tomorrow or Thursday some time (very busy tomorrow). Anybody else?  To the anonymous editor above, a complete lack of response isn't consensus, it's rudeness.  (Just kidding, I've been marginally involved at the sandbox and encourage others—you?—to as well.)  Abrazame (talk) 01:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry; that was me. Didn't notice I wasn't logged in. CouldOughta (talk) 01:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Support: I like it. Clear, concise, delineated, and doesn't deviate into ancillary, non-biographical subject matter. My only concern is the sentence, "In February and March Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made separate overseas trips to announce a 'new era' in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe, using the terms 'break' and 'reset' to signal major changes from the policies of the preceding administration." It seems related more to the administration because the were acting without Obama, as he did not participate in that trip (to the best of my recollection); while relevant to his presidency, it's not nearly as relevant to his biography. Otherwise, a great exploration of important events in his presidency so far while remaining mostly biographical. Regarding N. Korea: seems fine to me, there really is much to say at this point so anything more would be over-playing the situation. I will add a reference to May's nuclear test for posterity. DKqwerty (talk) 01:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean-- it wasn't actually Obama on the trips, and this is a biography of Obama. I feel that it needs inclusion because the bio of a President has to include his major Presidential initiatives, and these visits were the starting gambit in his attempt to change foreign policy.  Also, he often uses his presidency as evidence of a major change in America, and these 'reset' initiatives were an example of the use of this theme (not strongly pushed at the time, but present).  Explicit discussion of this theme of Obama's belongs in the Public Image section, but it's nice to have an example here.


 * Ultimately we'll probably shorten this, as we see and cover the effects and successes of these policies, but at the moment it's his main foreign policy effort, along with the recent speeches. Thanks for the nuclear reference. CouldOughta (talk) 02:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "...these visits were the starting gambit in his attempt to change foreign policy." Okay, makes sense then. But maybe that section should say something to that effect to emphasize why it's included. Just to avoid confusion like mine. DKqwerty (talk) 02:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll hold off on updating the article at least until we hear from Abrazame. CouldOughta (talk) 02:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm wondering if the North Korean missile tests are really only notable to posterity by our suggesting it to be so. In other words, I don't think we want to be promoting the idea that any country that unsurprisingly breaks the nuclear test ban treaty (particularly North Korea) automatically becomes notable to the biography of the American president.  On his desk, yes; in his Wiki bio?  This is no Cuban Missile Crisis or 9/11 kind of earth-stopping and historically significant test of, and detour for the biography of, a president and the history of the world.  Not that that is the threshold for article inclusion but, you know what I'm saying?  Are we going to mention his response thus far to the Iraqi election, which is far more significant of an event (the election, not his response), or his response to Netanyahu's recent endorsement of a Palestinian state?  Even if those events are not, well, eventful, they are more of a unique and unusual and potentially world-changing development in and of themselves.  Was this news much after those respective weeks?  Whether they bear noting in Obama's bio, however, is no less reasonable to contemplate before putting it into the article.  Abrazame (talk) 02:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, it's time for philosophy. It seems a practical necessity to keep the article a few weeks behind the times, to let events develop, avoid WP:RECENT and drive-by editors reacting to current events.  Beyond that, my inclination is to keep the section in a state where, if Obama suddenly dropped dead, we could add the most recent month's events and conclude "...and then he dropped dead."  If he dropped dead right now, then repeated challenges from North Korea would indeed have been a major part of his tragically truncated presidency.  A year from now we'll know whether the North Korea thing was just another saber-rattling event and if so we should delete it as minor compared to other foreign-policy events, such as the democratization of Iran and the admission of Google to the United Nations. CouldOughta (talk) 03:09, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * In a friendly and collegial spirit: I love discussing philosophy but my objection was based on characterization. The sources you cite don't raise the North Korean actions to the level of a "challenge to Obama".  While I'm sure someone could find a source that did, I don't think that is much less POV than some of the other things we routinely dismiss as unencyclopedic.  For example, the ref characterizes that "North Korea defied the international community" with its launch, not the President of the U.S.  Should we add the launch to the Angela Merkel article as a test of her leadership as well?  Obama himself is characterized in the ref as saying "its rocket launch poses a global threat that warrants a United Nations Security Council response".  Secretary of State Clinton has called these "continuing provocative actions", which I think is the point: these are continuing provocative actions by Kim Jong-Il against the international community, similar to the 2006 test, which I don't believe anybody has encyclopedically characterized as a "challenge to George W. Bush", even though he was the one who declared them part of an Axis of Evil.  You (and I) may view the seemingly impending nuclearization of North Korea as one of the major challenges of our time.  You and I may acknowledge that the President of the U.S. is the leader of the free world.  But by this point in their development I don't think we should be making the leap to seeing this as a challenge to Obama.  And neither do those refs.  (If we were to say anything, we should be saying X happened and Obama/Clinton/the U.N./etc. said or did this in response.)


 * I have a thought about the stimulus package to run by you. In an effort to explain this issue to people who may believe that was already spent long ago and we're living in its aftermath, is there somewhere to find out how much of the $787 billion has already been spent, and we could update it weekly or monthly or as our source gets updated?  Not details of what or where or to whom, which is far too much detail here, but I know that I've heard or read somewhere that an amazingly small percentage—was it 9% a couple weeks ago?—has been spent so far on "shovel-ready" stuff.  With bids finally being approved for contracts (3-month bid window to ensure we get the best deal) a lot more will start going out.  I think people aren't aware of the movement of the money and are just overhearing partisan hyperbole rather than information, data.


 * That could get slightly more coverage (even a graph?) over at Presidency, but just be touched on here at the bio.


 * I think we should add something in the Domestic Policy section about his speech to the AMA in the interest of promoting his health care overhaul.


 * Later tonight I can probably try and source this last one and add it myself if someone doesn't do so beforehand. Does anybody have a source for the amount of the stimulus that's gone out?  Is there a government website that tracks these things?  Is the GAO on top of this this early on along the curve?  If anybody knows (am I still kidding myself there's more than two people reading this?!), and doesn't want to take the time to write the piece, please give me the link and I'll go over and read it and try to translate it or format it here.


 * These are quick ideas off the top of my head. I had a couple others that I think may be better expounded on at Presidency.  I'll respond to any specific feedback and then read the whole thing again to see if I have any other issues with what's already there before starting on one or more of these things tonight.  Abrazame (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * First, it's great to have this discussion going on. Second, Here's another link to the sandbox so we don't have to scroll way up to the link above.
 * Maybe "repeated challenges" isn't the right wording for the N. Korea thing. I didn't want to imply that the Korean actions were intended as a challenge to the American president, just that their actions were a problem that required his response.  Like, their actions were a challenge in the same way that the economic crisis is a challenge.  Different wording might be called for-- I'll look at it tonight.  I'll also look at improving the state visits section per DKqwerty's comments.
 * The speech to the AMA looks like Act One of the White House push on health care, so either the speech itself or some other early initiative should be included soon, though I'm now sure it should be this week-- like I say, my inclination (remembering always that I'm just one editor) is to allow a few weeks of settling time between an event and its inclusion here. CouldOughta (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Question for the near future-- when you look at the Domestic section, imagining that we've added the start of the health care push, do you see any good further topical subdivision? We might use Health, Justice and Science for what we have now.  I ask because a topical organization will help keep the section from devolving into a chronological list of White House actions.CouldOughta (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Your notion on the stimulus is complicated. Let me look tonight.CouldOughta (talk) 15:02, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Does this help anything on the N. Korea subject: . Also adds citation for the detainment and sentencing of the American journalists as a provocative challenge. DKqwerty (talk) 15:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I lied; I updated the North Korea entry with the above reference; it's very recent but it fits well into the text. Holding off on the AMA speech and stimulus at least till tomorrow.  CouldOughta (talk) 01:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The stim bit doesn't have to be complicated, but we need a little bit of data. There are people tearing their hair out over the $787 billion (H.R. 1). Do you know that since the recession began (late 2007) the Bush and Obama administrations have committed almost $11 Trillion to stimulate the economy and/or prevent the devastation of American banking and business and a depression? But that doesn't mean people should start tearing each other's hair out. I say "committed" because we haven't actually spent the $11 Trillion, we've "only" spent $2.7 Trillion as of June 15, 2009. People keep hearing about all this money for this, all this money for that, but they don't realize it's not actually all been spent. Some is simply "committed", so that if it's needed it's there. Some, as I noted, is already being paid back. Some, as I'm trying to point out, hasn't yet been spent but will be as the months and years go on, and some of it may never be spent.

TARP, for example, was a $700 Billion program of which only $364.2 Billion has gone out and $70.1 Billion has already been returned.

The lion's share is for the Fed, which committed $6.2 Trillion and has only spent $1.4 Trillion.

My source doesn't specify how much of H.R. 1's $787 Billion has been spent. For anybody interested, the source is CNN.

A June 8 source tells me the CBO estimates 5% of H.R. 1 has been spent and that the White House estimates it as 14%. I'm looking for a better source on that. June 9, Obama said he was not satisfied with the pace and called on cabinet members to accelerate the spending. (The Wall Street Journal ) That detail may be best for Presidency. The GAO points out in a handy graph that of the $280 Billion Recovery Act segment of the Stimulus (paid out through the states) only about $50 Billion will be spent in 2009, with the most, $110 Billion, in 2010 and another $65 Billion or so in 2011 before sharply petering out (maybe $23 Billion in 2012 and less through 2016). That PDF is here.

I present thise to point out there are notable sources with raw data (as opposed to the characterizations so frequently part of additions here). If someone has conflicting or newer data, let me know. Otherwise I've done a rewrite which I will cite with these refs in the next day or so and see how it works in the Sandbox. If I/we whittle it down for the bio perhaps we can add the unabridged version to Presidency.

Then interested parties can update the figure, with new refs, every few months as available. Perhaps Presidency could leave the older refs to show how much was spent each quarter or each year and the bio could replace older refs with newer ones. In the meantime, the point is made that this stimulus is a work in progress intended to continue to irrigate the economy over the course of several years.

I have more to say about North Korea but thought I'd focus on this topic for the moment. Perhaps we should split this discussion into headed sections, one thread for North Korea, one for the Stimulus, etc., with the Sandbox linked from each? That might draw editors interested in contributing or commenting on those issues but for whatever reason confused or put off by the Sandbox concept and the mass of text. Gotta run, won't be back until late Friday or sometime Saturday. Best, Abrazame (talk) 10:32, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Abrazame, I started to write that I couldn't see a good way to add any stimulus numbers, but then I thought of one. It's very short, and should be updated at the end of the month and rewritten to run through July 18th (the administration's 6-month point) a month from now. But it's OK for the present. I also added a little more on the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies. The article is a little shy on the health care front, but I propose that we update now and revise when the battle has progressed. Regarding Brothejr's point below about page size, I disagree and I agree. The added text isn't that much; it looks like a big expansion, I think, because of the added whitespace caused by the new headings. But I agree that the article is longish. I looked at the text and I think we could cut 5%-15% just by trimming the prose. So after we do the Presidency update, I want to copy the Barack Obama section (i.e. the first sedction) to the sandbox and just tighten up the language, then move on to subsequent sections. I don't want to touch the lede; it's based on a reasonable consensus. CouldOughta (talk) 05:47, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight
Can someone go through CoM's recent alterations to the sandbox? While some of the edits I looked at seemed fine (though picky), I get nervous when that guy starts editing this article because it A) usually gets reverted and B) usually starts a heated debate that consists of his declaration that everyone else has POV conflicts. I don't have enough time today to go through the edits, nor do I fancy myself an expert, so I'd rather someone else take the lead on this one. Thank you. DKqwerty (talk) 11:59, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

CoM, DKqwerty, all those edits were fine. I subtweaked a couple of the tweaks and fixed a link. I don't care for one change, the Foreign Policy one, but I wasn't terribly happy with the original so I'll try for a new improvement later today. I haven't carefully considered CoM's comments at the end, which regard two (I think) subjects that CoM thinks need expansion. I'll look at that later today, too. My first gut reaction is to avoid being ambitious and add less rather than more, get this out of the Sandbox and into the article, and then repeat the improvement cycle (except that I'd first trim the prose in the rest of the article, starting with Early Life). But I'll look. Thanks to you both. CouldOughta (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I didn't want a string of edits to obscure a single inappropriate edit that then makes it to the article. To make it clear: I'm not saying he would have done anything maliciously, but his edits have a tendency to cause disputes revolving around (N)POV.
 * At this point, I think we need to make a final assessment and move it to the main article. This kind of add/revise stage can be wholly cyclical for an important person whose life makes news daily, like a president. I don't want to just shove it out inappropriately, but there's always something more to add, and the longer we wait, there's only even more to add. DKqwerty (talk) 18:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I tweaked the North Korea part; I added a ref that called the Korean actions a "challenge" for Obama, which enabled some more biography-like language. My crude idea of what to do next would be to copy the text in the Sandbox and paste it over the text in the article. But should I then just delete the sandbox text? Is there a way to save it, say by compressing it the way old discussion threads are hidden on this page but viewable by clicking a "show" button? If we did that, then the old text would be available for discussion but not clutter the page. Or is there a better way? My editing skills are pretty crude. CouldOughta (talk) 22:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC) Ah! A little experimentation has revealed the hat/hab thingie inside curly brackets that hides the text-- must mean "Has Been Archived". So the text can be hidden with a label saying "Presidency section text moved to article dd/mm/yyyy." Maybe after the text is accepted the discussion can be copied & compressed along with it. Maybe? CouldOughta (talk) 22:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Page Size
So far, the work on the proposed presidency section is looking good. However, one thing I noticed is the section's proposed size. While I do agree that we should expand the section and add new stuff too it, but before anyone tries to update and add all that stuff to the article, editors should first take a look at the article and remove some of the older stuff to make room for the presidency article. The article is already huge and adding even more info would blow it up even more. Brothejr (talk) 12:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Brothejr, see my response above about trimming the article. We can do it. CouldOughta (talk) 05:47, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I would like to point out that fully more than half of this article is not article at all, but references—not to mention infoboxes and categories. There may well be good reason to double-ref some of these claims, but I'm shocked at the number of statements in the article that are double, triple, and even quadruple-referenced.


 * As some of this may be the result of contention, consensus, or complexities and shadings in the statement that are not all found in a single ref, I would request that editors familiar with these sections make a quick review and remove extraneous duplicate references, and that future additions to the article only reference as many sources as are necessary to support the statement. In most cases, if the source is truly legitimate and notable then we shouldn't need to bolster it with additional sources simply for corroboration.


 * To be honest, I haven't sat down and read the article top to bottom in quite some time. Glancing at it, I certainly agree that a couple of sections here and there could be streamlined while conveying the same balance and information and am willing to help with that after we make sure that what we're adding is the best it can be.


 * However, Wiki articles have guidelines for length, and without all the references, infoboxes and categories, the readable text of the article is 35 Kilobytes long, not the 142 Kilobytes it seems to be at first glance. 35 K is a reasonable article length for a subject like the bio of Barack Obama.  The article does a pretty good job of splitting things into sections and subsections so interested parties can skim past what they don't want and hopefully find what they do.  I think it's worth fine-tuning for length, but it's not anywhere near as necessary as it may seem.


 * To be clear, the Sandbox section isn't appended to the Presidency section, it replaces what's currently in that section. Abrazame (talk) 06:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * As I mentioned before, I've been cool with how the presidency section is going to turn out and I also understand what you are saying. Sounds like a good idea with me. Brothejr (talk) 19:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Copied above text from talk page 6-24-09 CouldOughta (talk) 14:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to tighten up the prose in the Early life and career section
Following is the text from the Early life and career section from the Barack Obama article. I'm going to try to tighten it up, remove a (very) few extraneous bits, and thus achieve a 5% to 15% reduction in length with no significant change in content. Please comment on the talk page or put in your edits here. CouldOughta (talk) 14:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Early life and career
Barack Obama was born at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, to Stanley Ann Dunham, an American of mainly English descent from Wichita, Kansas,  and Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship. The couple married on February 2, 1961, and Barack was born later that year. His parents separated when he was two years old and they divorced in 1964. Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.

After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro, who was attending college in Hawaii. When Suharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967, all Indonesian students studying abroad were recalled and the family moved to the island nation. From ages six to ten, Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, including Besuki Public School and St. Francis of Assisi School.

In 1971, he returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham, and attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from the fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979.

Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 and remained there until 1977, when she relocated to Indonesia to work as an anthropological field worker. She finally returned to Hawaii in 1994 and lived there for one year before dying of ovarian cancer.

thumb|float|left|Right-to-left: Barack Obama and half-sister [[Maya Soetoro-Ng|Maya Soetoro, with their mother Ann Dunham and grandfather Stanley Dunham, in Hawaii (early 1970s)]]

Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind." He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage. Reflecting later on his formative years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear." Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind". At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency in 2008, Obama identified his high-school drug use as his "greatest moral failure".

Following high school, he moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College. After two years he transferred in 1981 to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations and graduated with a B.A. in 1983. He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988. During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000. He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens. Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute. In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time. He returned in August 2006 in a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year, and president of the journal in his second year.      During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990. After graduating with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago. Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations, though it evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.

From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois's Project Vote, a voter registration drive with a staff of ten and 700 volunteers; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, and led to Crain's Chicago Business naming Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.

For twelve years, Obama served as a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School; as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004. In 1993 he joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a twelve-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.

Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993. He served from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project, and also from 1994 to 2002 on the board of directors of the Joyce Foundation. Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999. He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.

Foreign Policy
North Korea policy was a complex challenge for the Obama administration during its first few months. The country tested a long-range rocket on the eve of Obama's speech in Ankara in April, conducted an underground nuclear test in May, and sentenced two unauthorized American journalists to 12 years' hard labor in June of 2009.