His two major achievements so far are the health care and financial system reforms and I wish he’d gotten more on both fronts. Both include some very good elements but they also don’t address some important issues that need to be dealt with. I’m not sure how much more was political possible on either issue but I think a public insurance option should’ve been included with health care reform and cost issues needed to be addresses, and the finance bill should have regulated derivatives and other financial instruments to a greater degree. That might’ve been possible if he’d moved on that issue sooner.
Economy: Unemployment is still high. I think the stimulus package should have included some provisions requiring banks and companies receiving federal money to turn around and spend the money, or in the case of banks lend it, instead of sitting on it. Some of these companies returned to profitability in a hurry without the rest of the economy taking off. Some of the financial institutions appear to be doing the same crap that brought about the 2008 crisis.
Wars: Both clusterfucks when he arrived. The Iraq reduction is moving along; whether anything that’s been done there will work is an open question. Afghanistan remains clusterfucky. I don’t know if anybody could have done anything at all with it, but despite the deadline I’m not sure anything has improved. Widespread use of unmanned drones is a point of concern that hardly anybody seems to worry about at this point.
Civil liberties: Everybody’s still waiting on the killshot for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell even though eliminating that rule appears to be broadly popular. I don’t know if the administration is taking things slow to avoid flack from the right or if they just want to prove they are considering the military’s opinions on the subject, or if it’s something else. Still, this is pretty popular and not hard to fix, and it hasn’t been done. The administration appears to be moving away from the War on Drugs somewhat, which is great even if it’s slow progress. Guantanamo Bay is still open and many controversial surveillance rules are still in use. These are both failures although I’m not surprised by either.
Courts: Too early to say much about Obama’s Supreme Court choices. I think he’ll also get to replace Ginsburg by 2012 after but at least through this term, he is not likely to be able to change anything significant about the makeup of the Supreme Court or the Court’s issues.
Congress: The people who said Obama’s biggest problems were going to be with Congress (and in particular with a big-tent Democratic Party instead of a smaller GOP) were correct. Despite Biden being a former Senator and Emanuel being a former Congressman the administration has not done well with Congress. They’ve tried to avoid bossing Congress around because Congress doesn’t like that, but the end result is that other people end up shaping the details of the administration’s agenda.
Gulf/BP: The Minerals Management Service should have been split up and its ashes scattered to the winds before the oil spill, and the process of oil permits should have been reformed. It still needs reforming. I don’t fault Obama on his handling of the spill itself, and I think he did very well in talking/cajoling/threatening BP to setting aside money early on to help people who were harmed by the spill. New Orleans still needs help related to Katrina and it’s sad that that’s become such a back-burner issue.
Foreign Affairs: He’s done fine here, I think. Anybody who thought he was going to be able to talk Iran into giving up its nuclear program, get tons of countries to join the Afghanistan effort, or boss China around was kidding himself. That’s not how these things work, and with the economy where it is, the military severely taxed and U.S. prestige at a low when he took office, his capacity to do things was limited. I think he’s doing well at rebuilding things here.
Mechagodzilla: Hasn’t attacked. B/B+.
