Barack Obama's Had a Pretty Damn Good Presidency

[boxman15]

This Mother Jones piece by Kevin Drum post really sums up how I feel about Barack Obama's presidency thus far perfectly, and it's a great and relatively short read. It's a response to the Washington Monthly post called "The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama," which is also an interesting read that puts Obama in historical context, but much longer.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/barack-obamas-had-pretty-damn-good-presidency

As long as we're piling on, I'd add a few other items to that list. First, Obama seems to despise the progressive base. He and his associates have made that clear over and over again. Second, he allowed Congress to take the lead on most of his domestic agenda. Whether this was smart or not doesn't really matter. What matters is that it makes him seem almost like an observer of events over the past three years, not a commander-in-chief. Third, from a progressive point of view, his record on national security is pretty bad. No, we're not torturing prisoners anymore, but the NSA surveillance program is still in place, American citizens are being targeted for assassination, the Afghanistan war has been escalated, drone attacks have skyrocketed, the state secrets privilege is still being used with abandon, Guantánamo is still open, and Patriot Act abuse seems to be as robust as ever.

And yet, there's still...the entire rest of his record. After all, Obama deserves to be judged by ordinary human standards, not by standards of perfection. A sidebar to Glastris' piece lists Obama's top 50 accomplishments, and I think it was a mistake to create a list so long. It ends up looking like the usual boring laundry list that any president can trumpet. Better to pare it down to 10 really top achievements in order to highlight how many truly major accomplishments Obama has been responsible for. So I did. Except I couldn't get there. I cut it down to 13 and got stuck. Here they are, in the same order as the original Washington Monthly list:

1. Passed Health Care Reform
2. Passed the Stimulus
3. Passed Wall Street Reform
4. Ended the War in Iraq
6. Eliminated Osama bin Laden
7. Turned Around US Auto Industry
9. Repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
12. Reversed Bush Torture Policies
14. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program
16. Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards
18. Passed Mini Stimuli (July 22, 2010; December 17, 2010; December 23, 2011)
22. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants
27. Achieved New START Treaty

SNIP

Unlike Paul Glastris, I'm not ready to start chiseling Obama's mug on Mount Rushmore. But unless national security is pretty much your sole obsession, I really have a hard time understanding progressives who are disappointed in him. Obama has gotten more done for the progressive cause than Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, JFK, or Harry Truman—and, on balance, nearly as much as LBJ, since he doesn't have any epic disasters to weigh down his successes. For an actual, existing human being, that's pretty damn good.

[Rex]

1. Well compared to the loser that was there from 2000-2008.

Obama has had the best term since LBJ.

GWB - 0
Obama - 1

[zipplewrath]

2. Maybe he should ask one

I really have a hard time understanding progressives who are disappointed in him.

I get the impression the guy hasn't ever actually talked to one. He might try it.

[SidDithers]

3. K&R...

thanks for posting.

Sid

[liberal N proud]

4. But he didn't start any wars

And that is important to keeping the military industrial complex oiled.


Now to take off my hat...


Yes he has had an exceptional term - 4 more years.

[woo me with science]

5. ...

Imagine how it would have been under a Republican
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=418146

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. K&R