What do you think? Did he live up to the hype? Is he the Anti-Christ, what?
Did he live up to the hype? Probably not. But he’s a sensible centrist (from a global POV) and it was nice to have eight years of relative sanity from the White House. One less thing to worry about.
He’s likable, certifiably sane, and generally relatively in line with Western European values on social issues. He’s taken a relatively sensible approach to Russia (Crimea annexation notwithstanding) and hasn’t gotten us embroiled in any more counterproductive wars, although I do take vehement issue with the withdrawal of Coalition troops from Iraq and Afghanistan - it reeks of bowing to short-sighted public opinion and leaving a job half done to me, but this is not so much an issue I have with Obama personally as it is an issue I have with how the entire Coalition handled the situation.
On top of all that, he’s approximately 10000x preferable to any other possible candidates at the current point in time. Hillary may make a solid replacement yet, but quite frankly I could live with another 8 years of Obama.
He could never have lived up to his hype, but he’s been a good President trying to do great things, hampered by an absurdly right wing congress.
He will be missed.
Only right wing wackos in America think he’s the anti-Christ.
This is interesting, but can we also get from responders two things? Country where you live (or continent if you’d prefer a little more privacy), and how long you’ve lived there?
This would be helpful, thanks in advance.
Bullitt, San Francisco CA USA, 20+ years.
No politician ever lives up to the hype.
I think he and his team have done their best, I think he’s made good choices for that team, I think in general he’s done good. Are there things I disagree with? No shit, hon, but I’ve even been known to disagree with myself and it’s not like my opinion matters. I think whenever a big policy is in the news there may be a bit too much focus on Obama vs whichever cabinet member is actually behind whatever policy but I’m not sure how much of that is US media, how much his choice and how much European reporting.
Snort. Well, I am from Spain, currently I even happen to be in Spain, but how long have I lived here depends on your definitions 
I’ve spent more of the last 24 years abroad (locations ranging from Argentina to Sweden) than in Spain.
Australia, 37 years.
This is absolutely true.
Obama is highly intelligent (I’ve read ‘Audacity of Hope’), overcame massive prejudice and has tackled the wars, health care and gun control.
The Republicans have run a constant knee-jerk opposition to everything he proposed - no debate, simply propaganda.
Obama has always been extremely popular here in the UK.
P.S.
America is a powerful force in the World and it scares me to see the possibility that the current Republicans might get control of the White House as well as Congress.
What happened to decent leaders like Reagan and Bush Senior? Look at GW Bush stumbling around. Sarah Palin as VP?! The current Republican Presidential debates consist of insults, shouting and no policy statements.
I think he’s a good man who means well and has some impressive domestic achievements. I also think that he’s not very good at foreign policy.
Brit here, I guess I may as well just say up front I’m basically a fanboy (and this has been helped of course by his recent visit to the UK where he gave powerful but respectful support for staying in the EU, and eloquently slapped down Boris Johnson).
I actually can’t think of anything he did in office that I would not also have done.
That’s not to say every bill / decision was perfect, but those I disagree with are ones where his hands were tied and he did the best he could with a hostile congress and needing to respect public opinion.
e.g. ACA doesn’t go far enough, but you can hardly blame him for that; any further and it would never have got pushed through. As previous presidents have found.
To add context to my previous post:
Denmark, roughly a decade. I’m Danish by birth, but spent my early schooling abroad and went to an American international school.
Singapore. 33 years, all my life.
Intelligent, sensible, far better than Bush and got a lot more done. Would appreciate him a bit more if he was stronger on the South China Sea, but eh. Has poor PR - his backdoor policy on Russia/Ukraine was far more effective than outright war (thank goodness Bush didn’t oversee that mess) but (it appears to me) that he was perceived as weak on that domestically.
The only president I’ve heard of that was willing to speak out against guns. He might be idealistic, and guns may always be with you, but at least he has his heart in the right place.
Québec, Canada, 40-several years.
I agree with most that’s been said above.
From the get-go he’s done what I would have done in his place, but with far more intelligence and eloquence. I don’t agree with everything he’s done, but given how much his hands are tied he’s done very well.
I like it that the US President is articulate, can speak well on his feet, off the cuff and has both an interest and empathy for the non-merkin world. I like it that he can take a joke.
IMHO A US president stands or falls based on two principals, the US economy and the US standing in the world.
I’m not close enough to judge his influence of the US economy but whether he didn’t try hard enough or was thoroughly stymied I’d struggle to give him more than a B+. Which ungraciously discounts there was also the slight problem of the GFC about the time he was sworn in,
He has improved the US’s standing profoundly, though most of us would have though merely standing still and having a pulse would have been an improvement.
It’s only when viewed through the sociopolitical prism of the current batch of GOP candidates that you realise it was actually possible to make things significantly worse.
If you have finished with him send him this way. I reckon we’d elect him here as either leader of the LIBs or LABs
Australian, and Obama is the first US president who’s younger than myself.
Thank you for adding your locations / or nationalities and how long you’ve lived there. It helps give perspective to the OP’s question (and I hope you don’t mind me asking for that, chacoguy).
Full disclosure, in case you don’t already know (I suspect some of you do): I am not a big Obama fan. However, I do like to know what people like about him and also, especially, some impacts that he, and by extension, America, has abroad.
I do some international travel and am sensitive to how Americans project ourselves abroad. We do want to work together and be good neighbors.
Thank you,
Bullitt, San Francisco CA USA, 20+ years
Obama has just put his nose into the UK’s EU referendum like a bull in a china shop and put a lot of backs up. He’s threatened us with putting the UK at the back of the queue for trade agreements. Well, he’s not going to be in charge by the time it all gets sorted out, and many here think that Britain will be better off without TTIP anyway because we see it as a significant threat and a stitch-up by American-led big business.
Only of those people who thought they could have whatever trade terms they wanted with whoever they wanted. All he did was point out that it takes two to tango. To mix metaphors further, he shot the exiteers’ fox: they’ve been touting the US as the great alternative to the EU, and he’s fully entitled to tell them not to take the US for granted.
As another Brit of broadly social democratic views, I echo the points made above: he is recognisably a human being of some personal and intellectual substance, not the Messiah, but at least on the same planet as the rest of the world. And he speaks in intelligible, thoughtful sentences and paragraphs on the topic at hand. He may be a bit over-cautious on the limits of what government and politics can actually achieve, but that’s a feature of your system.
42, Singapore for 16 years but New Zealand born and Edumacated.
I’m a serious fan-boy of Obama. Immediately after his election I read Dreams of My Father. Although I didn’t agree with all he wrote - it was an impressive book. All the more for the fact that I don’t doubt he wrote it himself.
Seeing the way he speaks - how he was able to stand in front of a Republican congress and hold his own, without notes was truly impressive.
He comes off as thoughtful and impressive in a way that bush never did. The level of obstruction that he has faced from congress has been, for lack of a better word, insane. It is likely lucky that he is so impressive - although the results he has achieved are “only” a B+, if he had a proper congress to work with it would likely have been so much more.
The way that he went after `Bin Laden took serious balls, and it’s surprising he doesn’t get more plaudits from the right for that.
Coming from a liberal democracy in New Zealand, to flawed democracy in Singapore - the way that Obama has been treated makes me appreciate the way we do things here. It is likely lucky that he is extraordinary - I would be so bold as to draw a comparison to the first black baseball player. Who had to be beyond great just to hold his own.
I know Obama and Netanyahu have, shall we say, had their disagreements, but what do you think of Obama’s overall approach to Israel?
Obama’s willingness to meet with the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook - one set of parents at a time, in the school - to speak to them about their children still astounds me. I can’t imagine the emotional fortitude it took to do something like that. One can understand why he might have taken a stronger line on gun control after that (although I doubt it would have mattered much in that particular shooting).
@Bullitt I think you’re going to find that a majority of Western European Dopers are willing to overlook some of the spottier parts of Obama’s record (Libya, the Snowden debacle, etc) because the readily available alternatives would be considered little more than hateful bigots across the pond. Opponents of gay marriage are generally in the minority, and outright intolerance of homosexuals would be complete career suicide. Obama’s very liberal stance compared to many other politicians and the GOP (at least as it is portrayed in our media) on these matters has done a great deal to endear him to myself and many of my peers, and the prospect of a Cruz or Trump presidency is looked on with great trepidation because quite frankly most of us are far from comfortable with the idea of people we consider vile and backwards at the head of the most powerful nation in the world.
To put it bluntly, if America wishes to retain any measure of goodwill and respect abroad, it would do well to not elect Trump, much less Cruz.