Until just the past few days, you’re right: the Dems in Congress have been doing all the heavy lifting.
But if it weren’t an Obama priority, they’d be doing the heavy lifting on something else instead. And if Obama hadn’t run such an effective campaign, there wouldn’t be 60 Dem Senators to make this possible to begin with.
But that’s different!
Overall, BHO has not been as bad as he could have been.
He said his main priorities were the economy, health care, and global warming.
On the economy, he has done nothing of any value. The stimulus package has driven the deficit to unsustainable levels (unlike the TARP payments). HCR has achieved neither what he wanted, nor what the country needs. It doesn’t address the causes of health care inflation much, if at all, costs a whole bunch, and doesn’t cover anybody. So if this is what he winds up with on HCR, pfft. He has done nothing on global warming - all the foreign governments who are now so friendly to us now that Bush is gone don’t seem to have changed their tune on AGW at all.
He is handling Iraq better than he might. He seems to have learned something from being wrong about the surge in Iraq, and therefore is doing better in Afghanistan than someone with as little experience as he has would be expected.
I’m feeling generous, so C-. I have the feeling the GOP is going to be in a rather different position come the 2010 elections, so we will see how wheter Obama does better, or worse, with fewer allies in Congress.
His approval ratings are not trending well for the Obama-ssiah (cite) either.
Regards,
Shodan
I guess we were paying too much attention to what the right was saying about him . . . :o
What astonishing legislative victory are you talking about? The health care bill has been compromised into ineffectivity. Any one can pass that ridiculous health care bill. That he spent a big portion of his political capital on it while accomplishing very little is an embarassment.
Give me one particular provision that was SO difficult to get through with the right amount of support.
Nope. The Obama fans during the campaign believed all of that. In fact, they used a lot of those arguments in voting for him over Hillary in the primaries.
Obama has yet to recover from the stumble he took with his friend, Prof Gates, in Cambridge. His popularity has been on a steady decline ever since.
Based on ineffective stimulus plans, Afghanistan, & the all too many broken campaign promises as to how his administration would run - Overall a D at best
Are you still smarting from Clinton’s nomination defeat?
Holy cow, man, let it go already…
What does that have to do with anything? I can tell you’re still drinking the Kool Aide.
FLAVOR AID.
Jesus Haploid Christ, if you’re gonna use that particular witticism, at least get it right.
Anduril, your only points in this debate so far are that Obama has been an embarrassment, and anyone who says otherwise, is drinking the Kool Aid.
I wonder if you have anything to back up your succinct opinions? Others here have posted reasoned arguments to and fro.
That’s nonsense. The health care bill is enormous and moves the US a lot closer to universal health care. This postby Kevin Drum does a good job of listing the main points.
Any one of these alone would have been significant; the combination of all these things is enormous. And it’s not so much any single part of the bill that was difficult to pass as the sum of the parts. So many things could have gone wrong. Not a single Republican was willing to vote for it despite extensive negotiations. A single Democrat or Lieberman could have sunk the bill. So many lobbies which have a powerful stake in health care could have sunk the bill. There were many people calling on Obama to postpone health care; if he had done that in all likelihood it would have never gotten passed. He decided to stake the whole first year of his Presidency on health care and in all likelihood will be rewarded with a big win.
It seems to me that the only people who immediately reach for terms like “drunk the Kool-aid” (yes, yes, “Flavor-aid”) when discussing Obama – besides the idiots who don’t know the difference between socialism and fascism…but Obama is both! – are Clinton supporters still bitter about the nomination.
You’re not an idiot, from what I recall. Perhaps I have you mixed up with someone else. At any rate, that’s the connection, since you asked.
You’re claiming Gates-gate is his undoing? Chrissakes, man, that barely lasted a news cycle.
Nonsense. All of those could have easily passed. A legislative victory would be a truly universal health care. As it is, the health care reform bill is the insurance industry’s dream. And BTW, they won it by bribing the last hold outs. How skillful do you have to be to bribe?
Can we get grades for Bush41, Clinton and Bush43 on their first years, just for comparisons?
I’m a fiscal arch-conservative and social (mostly) liberal who did not vote for Obama. Judging him on his own merits, I give Obama the following scores for his first year:
Message and delivery: A
Progress towards goals: B+/A-
Actual achievement of goals (to the best of his ability given Congress): B
Handling of Cabinet offices and Departments: B+/A-
Honesty and integrity/trustworthiness: A-/A
Ability to rise above scandal and distraction: B+/A-
Diplomacy and world interaction: A
Ability to keep America and Americans safe from “Teh Terror”: A
Handling of the Economic crisis: B+/A-
Health care reform: B-
LGBT rights: C
Other Civil Rights: B+
Energy and the Environment: B-
Crime and punishment: A-
Gun control: D+
Total: B+
FTR, the first-year scores I gave past Presidents were:
Bush Second Term: D
Bush First Term: B (come on, we were all riding that “let’s roll!” high)
Clinton Second Term: F-
Clinton First Term: D
Bush Senior: C
Reagan Second Term: D
Reagan First Term: B
Carter: C
I can’t claim to have gone over that entire site/cite, but I did search for “Gates” and came up snake eyes. I’m not pretending that Obama’s approval ratings are anything but what they are … but what does it have to do with that entirely trivial and minor event?
Mark Zandi, Chief Economist and Cofounder, Moody’s Economy.com. Also economic adviser to the McCain campaign.
Page 4.
Page 15.
From the American Enterprise Institute report The Year Ahead:
Una, what was it about Clinton that you didn’t like? The peace or the prosperity?
And what could Obama have done to warrant a D+ in gun control? I don’t recall him saying a thing about it.