The Senate passed a test-vote on START ratification with 67 votes. What this means is that the president is going to succeed in his number one priority foreign policy item in his first two years in the White House.
He also just completed a total repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and in a manner far superior to doing it by executive order, as many impatient people insisted that he do. He’s going to get the 9/11 Responders bill passed. He is the only president in our history to successfully pass a bill to establish the right of access to health care for all our citizens (not to mention, the subsidies to make sure people can access it).
He’s already the best president of my lifetime and he has six years to go. It’s not even close. I’m basically at the point now where I don’t even want to hear the complaining and griping. He’s about the last person in Washington DC who deserves criticism. When you get done handling everyone who makes his job difficult, then you can get to him. Wake me up when someone has his back on Guantanamo. Wake me up when he can get some money to conduct a trial for an al-Qaeda suspect.
And he did all this with a 60-vote requirement, a Party of No opposition, two shitty wars he didn’t start, a seven million job lost deficit, and a bunch of people calling him a Kenyan socialist Nazi who wants to kill your grandma and turn the country over to Sharia Law.
But he didn’t do x so I guess McCain/Palin would have been just as good and really no different if you think about it.
Unless I get my pony for Christmas, he will still suck.
And why hasn’t he made it stop raining in California? I have plans in Monterey next week, and I need it dry.
GD commie.
nalbar
And he’d better not forget about those Cha Cha Heels! Black ones!
He’s already the best president of my lifetime and he has six years to go.
That’s a pretty low bar to clear.
Wake me up when someone has his back on Guantanamo. Wake me up when he can get some money to conduct a trial for an al-Qaeda suspect.
I thought the President is supposed to be “The leader of the free world”? And did you read where it appears that the President traded this for DADT repeal?
“I thought the President is supposed to be “The leader of the free world”?”
How old are you? Seriously? Grow the fuck up. The last time you believed that leader of the free world crap, I’d wager you were rockin’ bellbottoms (UNironically).
If this was the best response you could come up with, that speaks volumes.
Best president? I’ll reserve judgment until he’s done. In my life he’s currently tied with LBJ in terms of what he’s done. Both accomplished a load of good things in their first couple of years. But like LBJ he appears to be embroiled in a bad advice war strategy/defense budget which is bankrupting our country in a manner similar to Vietnam – both economically and morally. And the entire political system seems beholden to the money now provided by the Citizen’s United decision. The real tell will be what happens with climate change, green technology, jobs, infrastructure, education, and social services vs the MI Complex and Corporate America (AKA greed). I don’t blame Obama for any of this, but if the current course doesn’t change, his legacy will be an afterthought. A country which can blow the shit out of anything and has more money than anyplace in history, but is 15th in reading, 17th in science, 21st in live births and 25th in math just can’t sustain itself. Balance that against the fact that we have twice as many children in poverty as any of the other major industrial nations. I would propose that the US has lost it’s exceptionalism and is in a form of self delusion. We’re on the road to some very weird “fifth worldism” of the obscenely rich controlling the working poor. Think of it as feudalism with iPads.
Also. No president is perfect, but for me the best were Lincoln and Roosevelt. They overcame the longest odds. I continue to wish Obama good luck, but maybe the odds against him are just too long. š
Oh, O is well ahead of LBJ, even with the escalation in Afghanistan. But it’s escalation that doesn’t seem remotely as open-ended as LBJ’s sudden decision in early ’65 to escalate, which that year he further escalated, then again, and again the next year and the year after, etc. What a disaster, for his party and his country. And it was LBJ’s decision, his War — this business about his advisers is a lot of revisionist nonsense. Johnson was always, always, a hawkish cold warrior. Those advisers only told him what they knew or suspected he wanted to hear.
O, fortunately for us, is not in LBJ’s league in terms of stupidity on FP, nor of course remotely in his galaxy in terms of personal corruption, which he has none of but which Johnson had in spades.
Agree though about AL and FDR, the #2 and 3 best on my list all-time.
Cogent, accurate assessment Mr BooMan. I suggest you ‘pin’ that post to the top of your blog for a few days, and spread it widely, because you have done in a few sentences what ALL Americans would be wise to not only read but understand.
With the exception of very few, this President has been truly the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – our President, your President, every American’s President – every single day since taking his Oath of Office.
In my 64 years, no other President has come close, though I will always respect the achievements (vision and warnings) of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson.
Thank you.
He also did it with a corrupt and deceitful Supreme Court (or Subprime Court, as I’ve come to call it).
I don’t know how long your lifetime has been, but unless it starts with Reagan, that judgment may be premature. The final verdict, I think, will hinge on Obama improving his political, as opposed to policy, game. And on regaining the kind of enthusiasm that got him elected.
Having thrown in the towel on Middle East peace, in vast contrast to the outlook of his Cairo speech, where he spoke of human rights and just solutions, Obama will always be known as, as you suggested some time ago, Netanyahu’s poodle.
For allowing himself to become the poodle of the leader of another tiny country, I would have to say that this failure will forever mark his presidency, making it a laughing stock when others will actually talk about there being an American Empire led by Obama.
The Emperor has few clothes. There are just some areas where we can no longer pretend that he is a strong leader.
Congratulations for proving BooMan’s point.
And what point was that? That Obama was taught a lesson about being too ambitious concerning prospects for Middle East peace while confronting Israel’s right wing agenda of continued occupation and colonialism, actually admitting it, then slowly withdrawing from the fray. Israel is so confident of its ability to control him that it actually spurned a 3 billion dollar bribe. Netanyahu didn’t need it and he knew it.
The American presidency, shall we say, was shown to be, under Obama, no match for the Israel Lobby. This is not the most powerful man on earth afterall, is it?
Sigh. From the post by BooMan above:
You can continue your single issue focus or you can look at the larger picture.
I don’t disagree that in many respects Obama’s first two years have been successful, at least domestically. All I am saying is that in foreign policy and the Middle East, my area of interest, he has been a disastrous failure.
Juan Cole’s review: Obama’s 2010 Successes and Failures in the Middle East – Cole in Truthdig, should be read.
http://www.juancole.com/2010/12/obamas-2010-successes-and-failures-in-the-middle-east-cole-in-truthd
ig.html
This seems to be a one-issue thing with you, fair enough – it deserves some attention. However, how many times does it take for Obama to pull something out of the hat at the last minute to earn the faith of his so-called supporters? How many people thought HCR was dead? that the consumer protection agency would be stripped from financial reform? that elizabeth warren would be left out in the cold? that dadt repeal wouldn’t even get a vote, let alone pass? that START wouldn’t get ratified. the list goes on and on and on. I think what I am saying is that give the man some more time, especially on the mid east peace thing which is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve.
No towel has been thrown in yet! This is difficult and delicate stuff … and it has yet to play out. Didn’t you see, just a day or two ago, Abbas had a meeting with Israeli legislators and others in Ramallah? Something is going on. Watch the long game, not the minute by minute.
This kind of thing has been going on for 19 years. As the world turns so turns Middle East peace negotiations. Megotiations to no where but more negotiations. Shamir, a past Israeli PM, said it best when he claimed that he could keep the Palestinians in negotiations for ten years, while another half million Israelis settled the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It is just another ploy, like so many others before it beginning with Oslo, the greatest hoax of them all.
sher, look under your bed, maybe Obama put your pony under there.
nalbar
That’s not a response unless you’re suggesting that Obama’s foreign policy is NOT Israel’s. In that case, I disagree totally.
Domestically, he has done the best he can, even though he took up a Wall Street uber alles policy rather than helping Main Street.
On the foreign scene, he has simply accepted right wing Israeli politics as a fait accompli. He is in retreat.
This is true of my lifetime, but I was born in ’84, so I’m not sure that’s much of an accomplishment on Obama’s part. Great, he managed to beat out the two worst presidents in American history, a largely meh one-termer, and Bill Clinton (whose accomplishments were wiped out in all of about fifteen minutes after Junior took office).
I suppose I’d have to put him ahead of Carter for effectiveness. Nobody cares about Ford. And Nixon was, well, Nixon.
So, yes, by process of elimination I guess I’d have to rate him as best since Johnson. But less than being impressed by Obama, I’m rather astonished by how terrible the last several presidents have been. Beating out that list is like beating a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.
Really? Clinton was terrible?
Nonsense.
Eight years of peace and prosperity, under opposition circumstances far more severe, relentless and widespread than O has experienced.
Came to office as a 43% president but still managed to get a lot done, especially on improving the economy.
O came in as a 53% prez with a considerable wind at his back, and then began to disappoint with his modest moves and unfortunate continuation of some of Junior’s policies. Making a comeback though in this lame-duck Congress, to his credit. Starting to act in non-wimpy ways for a change.
The economy improved in the ’90s for many reasons, most of which had nothing to do with the politicians of the day.
Clinton balanced the budget and made the tax system fairer. Bush wiped that out quickly. It was an okay legacy, but it wasn’t a lasting one.
DADT? Welfare reform? DOMA? Let’s remember that those are part of the Clinton legacy, too.
And let’s remember that Glass-Steagal was repealed under Clinton, and derivatives were allowed to be free of regulation, which is what set us up for the economy of today.
What has surprised me most in these past two years is how much Obama has accomplished, and how little credit he has gotten for it from his own progressive base, many of whom seem to be almost as reality-challenged as the rethugs. On many progressive sites, commenters portray Obama as a democrat in name only, a stooge to republicans, a poor negotiator, a shill to corporations. Meanwhile, he proceeds from one progressive accomplishment on top of the next, often with little fanfare .
What has surprised me most in these past two years is how much Obama has accomplished, and how little credit he has gotten for it from his own progressive base, many of whom seem to be almost as reality-challenged as the rethugs.
You are wrong about that. The problem is he has so far failed on his biggest challenge. The economy. Letting people like Geithner and Bernanke run the show is just asking for disaster. If unemployment fails to turn around, he’ll be toast in 2 years(unless, of course, Palin is the Puke nominee or something similiar). He better figure out something.
I don’t give him such poor marks on the economy as some. After all, he and his team did keep us out of another Great Depression. 10% unemployment seems pretty good compared to that. My hope is that that number will also improve — the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, and it did take a few years to dig this hole in the first place.
But there is a moral aspect to the way he has handled things so far which disturbs me more — a sense that justice has not been done, that crooks have not been punished, that the system is still corrupt. Maybe its because he came up through Chicago. I want to see more progress there, frankly, than on the numbers.
There’s more than a mere “sense” of it with me — Obama clearly has allowed the banksters to get away scot-free, and with billions in taxpayer dollars to tide them over in this economy.
A major Obama failure so far.
And we’re not out of the woods yet on the economy. O might consider, if he hasn’t already in that one recent private chat with business leaders, to start using the bully pulpit and his considerable persuasive powers to start shaming Corporate America into beginning to open up their swelled coffers and start creating jobs again. So far he’s been far too kind to them, almost coddling them as they continue to sit on historic levels of capital that make the mind boggle.
Well said Booman.
Facing a 60 vote requirement to get anything out of the senate all Obama has done is the following:
-Health Reform which will get insurance to an additional 32 million people and establishes as the default setting of the country that it is the responsibility of the govenment to get you insurance if you can’t get it yourself
-Financial Reform containing the most sweeping regulations since the depression including the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency to be headed by Elizabeth Warren. This would have been a pipe dream just a couple of years ago
-A recovery Act that included the largest middle class tax cut ever. The largest investment in education ever. The largest investment in clean energy ever. And one of the largest investments in infrastructure since the depression. And oh yeah, it also stopped a depression from happening. He also did this while only having 57 functioning Democrats in the Senate at the time.
-Ledbetter Fair Pay Act For Women
-Largest land conservation bill in nearly 20 years
-Student Loan Reform
-Rescued the entire friggin Auto Industry
-Consumer Credit Card Protection Act
-Tons of new tobacco regulations
-Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Bill
-Most funding for the Veteran’s Administration. EVER.
-Passed a National Service Bill that tripled the size of America Corps
-Expanded S-Chip getting health care to millions of more kids
-Passed the “Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act”
-Weapons System and Acquisition Reform where for the first time in ages weapons systems were actually cut
-The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
-Reduced the mandatory minimum on crack to be more in line with cocaine
-He INTEGRATED THE WHOLE FUCKING MILITARY FOR GAY PEOPLE and in addition to that made progress on hospital visitation rights and created a package of domestic partnership benefits for all Federal workers
-Lifted the travel/immigration ban on those with HIV/AIDS
-Eased up on the stupid Cuba embargo
-Brought home all combat troops from Iraq
-Banned torture
-Reversed Bush global gag rule
-Expanded Stem Cell Research
-Put first ever Latina on the Supreme Court
-Made it substantially easier for Vetrans with PTS Disorder to get benefits
-Officially lists all White House Visitors online
-Passed the most progressive budget bill in a generation
-Ended raids on places that sell medical marijuana
-Will likely have a historic Arms agreement with Russia
-Overhauled ALL OF OUR FOOD SAFETY LAWS
For anyone to still talk shit about this president, you’re effing nuts. Of course not all legislation is perfect and as with any president there are are areas to be critical of. But this bizarre notion that if something doesn’t overturn the entire existing order of things that it should be stopped, and any progress that isn’t perfect should be demonized is just stupid.
Under that line of thinking Social Security in it’s original form was shit. Medicaid originally exluded adults. Yes, LBJ controlling two thirds of all of congress passed a health care program for the poor that excluded adults, and never even attempted Universal health care.
I’m sure their are other accomplishments I’ve left out, but to accomplish the above (WHILE REDUCING THE DEFICIT NO LESS) facing what this guy has faced in nothing short of astonishing.
…he goes out and gets shit done.
I do appreciate Booman’s point of view, and I also welcome volagsrule’s reposting of the “list of Obama’s accomplishments”. It serves as a good reminder that a lot of what the President does is not in the headlines or, like the Lily Ledbetter Act, tends to get forgotten quickly.
OTOH, I’m not sure I agree. The problem with this list is that what you are asking us to do is compare a detailed list of Obama’s accomplishments with what we remember of the accomplishments of Clinton, Carter, Johnson, etc. That’s obviously an unfair comparison.
If I have time during this “holiday break” I will try to research what a similar list would look like for the previous 3 Democratic Presidents, both before and after their first two years. It’s also worth looking at Nixon and GHWB — you’d probably be surprised at the number of solidly progressive things they got done, especially Nixon.
My guess is that long list won’t look so impressive when you see all the other forgotten accomplishments of past administrations. From the Freedom of Information Act to COBRA (which was the first law to address the problem of pre-existing conditions, albeit only for those moving to new employers) to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty to the Clean Air/Water Act, etc. That isn’t to say that what Obama has accomplished isn’t terrific — but after enduring 8 years of Bush and 6 years of Gingrich before that you might have forgotten that this is what we expect of Democratic administrations.
And if, as I suspect, Obama’s positives don’t look so terrific relative to his Democratic predecessors (probably just equally as good), then we do need to look at the negatives. The administration of HAMP and TARP, for example. His not only adopting the Bush world view in terms of Constitutional Rights, but extending it further. His continued over-investment in the military and military adventures (of course, on that topic you probably have to go back before the Depression to find a President who wasn’t guilty of the same).
And, as others have pointed out, we need to reserve final judgement until we have full historical perspective. His administration is already sending out trial balloons regarding Social Security. He’s utterly failed on climate change so far (very possibly the most critical issue of our time). And it’s not clear how much of his signature accomplishment, HCR, is going to survive the next two years after the electoral slaughter he endured in his first mid-term (sharing that failure with Clinton).
What he does on those issue may ultimately matter more than anything he’s done — or not done — to date.
And who isn’t fearful of the Social Security move.
Reducing income to this basic security program in order to use it as a stimulus is an extrordinary step for a Democratic president to take. We must be reminded that while Bush failed to tear down the Social Security program by turning it into a roulette game, it was Clinton who first proposed investing Social Security funds in the stock market.
Thank heaven for Lewinski and the scandal she fomented, which prevented that untoward step by a triangulated Republican Lite president.
impressive list, and there’s more… Here a few important ones in my opinion:
How much of this list is a plan, a program, canny politics, and how much is just blundering in the right direction ?
Ok, art of the possible, I get it, but I see a huge gift to the insurance industry, no real reform of Wall Street, many merely cosmetic changes, and a lot of stuff that would have happened anyway.
would have happened anyway – very funny
“I see a huge give to the insurance industry, no real reform of Wall Street, manly merely cosmetic changes”
Really? Do you really “see” that or are you just parroting some other idiot blogs? Do you see a “huge gift” to previously uninsured people with pre-existing conditions who can now get insurance? Do you see a “huge gift” to those given subsidies to buy insurance? Do you see a “huge gift” to those who will benefit from the Consumer Protection Agency?
Are you really saying that HCR reform (something which has been on the wish list for about 100 years), financial reform, student loan reform, DADT, New START and all the rest “would have happened anyway”? If that’s the case, what’s the fucking point in trying pressure senators, congressmen/women and/or the President. Mind you, what’s the fucking point in government at all?
You dick.
What a jerk. Are you just here to dump your crappy little turd comments on people? You seem to have no idea of anything useful, just dumping on the comments of others.
knock off the personal attacks & stick to the points.
I should add that if you want to know how much of this list is a plan, take a look at the campaign promises of this President, then take a look at his achievments and accomplishments (half way through the first term, I might add) and then consider how much of an overlap there is. And then point me to another President who came even half as close to such a great overlap in his first two years.
greatferm is obviously trying to be funny. but I highly recommend he/she not give up his/her day job.
OK, I cannot disagree that he has gotten stuff done.
However, the signature accomplishment, health care, is trembling on the brink. Has is been nailed in place? Is the lack of severability going to doom it.
And just as a point of style, I really am annoyed that DFH-punching is the method of bipartisanshit in this administration. When is he going to hold the Repukeliscum responsible for any of this shit?
HCR is going to be fine, you seriously cannot have expected it not to be attacked by republican judges but there is no way that the Supreme Court is going to undo it in toto (as opposed to bits here and there). Your concerns about severability also seem misplaced since the judge that ruled the mandate unconstitutional wasn’t willing to extend that any wider to the law as a whole. Maybe I haven’t understood the point, but I find it difficult to see that this will be overturned.
On your “dfh-punching” point can I ask you and other self-confessed DFH’s to grow the fuck up? It is NOT a method of bipartisanship, and it is not punching. It is frustration that some on the so-called progressive side are so willing to find flaws that they are unable or unwilling to credit the good stuff. Your comment being one example (yes he’s got stuff done but it’s not going to last, or some technical point wasn’t covered). Having read a number of your posts, sanctimonious is a pretty fair description, in my view.
I sure admire you, living in Pangloss there and chucking the chicken bones out the window. Life is good and la-de-dah.
In 2012, Obama’s inept incompetence will lose us the Senate. What then?
Best presidents of my lifetime, going back (barely) to Ike:
Bill Clinton, Glass-Steagall and the Current Financial and Mortgage Crisis, Part Two of an InDepth Investigative Report
Have a read: http://thestrangedeathofliberalamerica.com/bill-clinton-glass-steagall-and-the-current-financial-and
-mortgage-crisis-part-two-of-an-indepth-investigative-report.html
Then we need to give Lewinski her due. The scandal prevented Bill from moving ahead with the privitization of Social Security. No, Bush II did not invent the idea.
” He’s about the last person in Washington DC who deserves criticism. When you get done handling everyone who makes his job difficult, then you can get to him. Wake me up when someone has his back on Guantanamo. Wake me up when he can get some money to conduct a trial for an al-Qaeda suspect.
And he did all this with a 60-vote requirement, a Party of No opposition, two shitty wars he didn’t start, a seven million job lost deficit, and a bunch of people calling him a Kenyan socialist Nazi who wants to kill your grandma and turn the country over to Sharia Law. “
Not much more needs to be said than that.
Oh, you forgot. He’s a racist white hater too.
And he hates America.
And inept, in over his head, less qualified and experienced in public office than even Sarah Palin.
And he likes queers and wants to destroy American values.
And he has WAAAAY overstepped the Constitutional bounds of the office.
That and not caring (along with Harry and Nancy) about the deficit, no wonder he got so much done.
BLAM!!