(I’m not posting this in Elections because the topic is broader than whether Obama can or should be re-elected.) I see a lot of positive accomplishments, even with a hostile House since 2008: Domestically, at least the beginnings of serious health-care reform; stimulus spending that seems to be starting to work, now, finally; and he has recently announced plans to reorganize and streamline both the military and the civilian federal government. In foreign/military policy, he ended DADT, ended the war in Iraq, is winding down the war in Afghanistan, dealt with the Egyptian Revolution as well as a POTUS could have, helped tip the balance in the Libyan Civil War at no cost in American lives, and has generally turned a lot of bad will towards America into good will around the world. I’d say he’s earned his Peace Prize. Oh, and he got bin Laden, how many years did W have to get that done?
I like him.
In what sense did “he” get bin Laden?
Are you implying that he did it personally? Or that he gave more funding to the task than Bush?
This just makes no sense to me. What role did Obama play in “getting” bin Laden. As far as I know, he just happened to be in office at the time that the event happened. Do you have any information at all that might convince me that the events would have unfolded any differently if anyone else had been in office? Or better yet, information that bin Laden would have been “got” sooner if Obama had been in office during Bush’s terms?
On the face of it, it seems like a ridiculous claim. I assume that “getting” bin Laden was precisely as high a priority for the military regardless of who was President.
What, he did all that within 2 weeks of taking office, which was when he was nominated for the peace prize? If you aren’t making such a claim, then in what sense did he “earn” the prize?
A couple days ago, the news was still showing some clips of Obama’s SotU address, and I just turned to my wife and said, “y’know, after all the ups and downs over the last four years, he kept his cool… I still like him.”
He inherited one clusterfuck of a national crisis (which granted, ain’t over yet), and navigated it the best I think any of his contemporaries could’ve.
I feel pretty confident he’ll be re-elected at this point, and I think he can really make some inroads with a 2nd term now that his shoes are a bit more broken in. Congress willing.
Well, he got rid of DADT. That’s a plus. We got out of Iraq despite him, not because of him (Iraq was only willing to let the soldiers stay if they could be held accountable when they do things like deliberately murder women and children, which wasn’t an acceptable compromise to the US), the healthcare reform created something worse than single payer or the one you started with, he’s been abusing the 1918 Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers and denying people hurt by the government the ability to have their grievences heard in court.
Not to mention threatening to veto a bill solidifying the policy of indefinite detention without trial, but only because he didn’t want Congress interfering with the decision-making and thus reducing his personal power.
From a Bush press conference on March 13, 2002:
From a 2008 town hall debate:
Your assumption would be wrong. GWBush made it clear that capturing or killing bin Laden was not a particularly high priority for him, even saying “I don’t know where bin Laden is, nor do I ca…I just don’t spend that much time on it.”
Obama’s credit for killing bin Laden was that it was at his direction that bin Laden was made a higher priority, and more resources directed toward such. Bush thought bin Laden had been marginalized enough not to be a threat, and decided spending lots of resources to capture or kill him was not worth the effort.
In fairness, Obama does deserve credit for getting bin Laden. He authorized a covert op on foreign soil, without the consent of Pakistan’s government. It could have gone horribly wrong, and if it did, he’d get Jimmy Carter heat for the ensuing clusterfuck. That kept a campaign promise–or at least something he said in one of the debates–that if he had solid info on bin Laden’s location, he’d send in a team to get him. Think he caught some flak for saying it at the time, but he followed through. Ballsy call.
Obama is commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and we are pretty much out of Iraq. He gets credit for it. I would have liked to give him credit for getting us out much earlier, and would like even more to give him credit for getting us out of Afghanistan. I continue to hope.
I think Obama is a president that the US is positively blessed to have. Remember that all of his accomplishments have been despite constant opposition, the kind of opposition that wouldn’t reach across the aisle if he proposed a bill as simple as “Puppies are cute”. Obama’s accomplishments are nothing short of amazing.
Also, the reader may wish to consider what kind of shape America would be in right now in the third year of a John McCain-Sarah Palin regime.
Soldiers do as they are told so if they are told not to look for him they don’t look. Getting Bin Laden involved people on the ground in Pakistan, spy drones, satellite surveillance and a lot of people with magnifying glasses saying “maybe”. In other words, not the kind of thing the leader of SEAL Team Six could have done in his spare time no matter how much he wanted to.
Which one?
Oh, wait. They’re all the same.
Big accomplishments in difficult circumstances. Healthcare has a claim to being the biggest legislative win for a US President since LBJ.
His basic problem has been a deep, intractable recession which was always going to be difficult to get out of. The fiscal stimulus helped end the worst of the recession in 2009/10 but wasn’t enough to spark a strong recovery. A bigger stimulus was needed but politically it was probably not possible. You can argue that he should have replaced Bernanke with someone more aggressive but again politically this would have been very difficult and risky.
Perhaps the main criticism is that he hasn’t managed to create a compelling story to explain his economic policies to the public the way that maybe Clinton did. He has given some good speeches without crafting an overarching narrative. But I am not even sure of that criticism. After all Clinton’s first term was less successful than Obama’s and he had the benefit of a better economy. Presidential oratory is just not that powerful a tool.
Overall I would give Obama an A-.
How is the stimulus starting to work? How can you attribute the perceived improvement in the economy to Obama’s stimulus?
Spam reported.
The rooster crowed, and two years later the sun rose. How can you doubt it?
Regards,
Shodan
Do you have a particular problem with any of the things he has repeated in the SotU addresses? If an issue was important last year and is still deemed to be important by the president, why shouldn’t he bring it up again? The repetition might get a bit stale as far as speeches go, but there is nothing wrong per se with doing so.
Well, when you can’t attack the substance, attack the form.
:dubious: You’re not still debating this shit, are you?
:rolleyes: And that’s even sillier.
I wish I could remember the commenter who said, on Bill Maher’s show – if bin Laden had been taked down like this during the Bush administration, George W would already have a tear drop tattoo next to his eye.
Obama’s administration? Eh, it’s not like he did really did anything important; he just watched on the TeeVee. What a pussy.