Talk:Criticism of Barack Obama

This is from a discussion during the March 16thish AfD for Criticism of George W. Bush. I have no interest in writing this article, but an editor asked me what topics I would include for this article, and I rattled off some topics from the top of my head. If you are serious about writing this article, and you are not just trying to disrupt Wikipedia or use it as some sort of personal blog, you might want to use some of these subtopics as a starting point.

I challenge you to name, right here and now, the top 5 criticisms you would post in an Obama criticism article. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 07:41, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is Wikipedia, not a dueling ground where you need to challenge people "right here and now". I don't have the time to create any article, much less write the Criticism of Barack Obama article. However, I would guess there is substantial information to be written on criticism over the stimulus package and 2009 budget, over Obama's health care proposals (or lack thereof), over the proposed mortgage bailout, over Tim Geithner's handling of the continuing financial and banking crisis as Treasury secretary, over closing down Guantanamo, over allegedly talking down the economy, and (from the left) over continuing support of Bush administration legal positions regarding alleged terrorists. You have some peripheral criticisms as well, including criticism from the British press over the reception of Gordon Brown and criticism during the 2008 campaign of his admitted prior cocaine use (Bush's alcoholism is included in his article). There's a lot of good material that can be written by a dedidicated editor. BTW, as a COI disclaimer, I did vote for Obama in the 2008 election and I currently somewhat approve of his performance. JustGettingItRight (talk) 08:49, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

JustGettingItRight (talk) 09:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)


 * See User talk:THF. Cool Hand Luke 00:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, to avoid it just becoming "negativity about Obama" you have to decide what you mean by criticism or controversy. There are allegations where the truth of the matter is open to question... I can't think of any right now, perhaps whether Obama was complicit in Rezko's frauds.  Then there are policy differences such as people who simply oppose his position and think it's wrong, bad for America, misguided, etc.  Then there are disparagements where the facts are known but the implications mean different things to different people... that's most of them and includes connections with Wright, Ayers, ACORN, past drug use, etc.  And then there are fringe theories (y'all know them so I won't repeat).  There are opinions or assessments, e.g. that he is elitist, inexperienced, glib, etc.  Finally there are controversies, i.e. coverage of the dispute itself rather than whatever the underlying circumstance is.  My thought is that if the article is broad and open to all these things as long as they are negative, it increases the chance that it will be deleted as a coatrack / POV fork.  If you can stay focused on a defined topic area and argue that it's an encyclopedic subject (which, heaven forbid, implies maybe more than one article here), it stands a better chance.  Hope that helps.  Wikidemon (talk) 19:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 7 June 2015
Could the admins please add this Category:Criticisms of individuals?

Clr324 (say hi) 23:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that's appropriate. That is a category for articles whereas this is just a redirect. I believe (but may be wrong) that templates on redirects are restricted to those listed on Template messages/Redirect pages. Regards &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:24, 8 June 2015 (UTC)