We’re nearing the end of Obama’s first month in power, so it’s time to give our Student in Chief a letter grade so we can check his progress.
You know how these work. They go from A+ for fantastic to F for FAIL.
Optionally, you can say whether you voted for him, and why, and say whatever you like to justify your lette grade.
In the interests of not biasing the results, I’ll refrain from giving mine until a fair number of people have given theirs.
B+
In terms of what he wanted to get done politically…
Passed the economic stimulus bill in the face of unified Republican opposition, essentially in the form he wanted (approximately same price tag, similar balance of tax cuts and spending.
Took steps to close Guantanamo bay and enhance the openness of the Executive branch.
Despite the intense political wrangling, maintains a high (65%+) approval rating amongst the general populace (Cite). The legislative wing of his party also enjoys higher approval ratings then the opposition party.
Rollout of much of his staff went poorly due to various issues, mostly tax related. This was unfortunate but hardly unprecedented. Geithner and the Treasury Department in particular has been troublesome; given the contemporary importance and public awareness of this office it’s quite surprising how this has been handled.
The optics of his political acumen are easier to judge at this point; the efficacy of his policies will be difficult to assess for some time. I think the consensus of economic academics seems to be more or less that a sizeable stimulus is required to prevent further economic damage, and Obama has listened to this consensus.
I’m disappointed with his retention of the rendition program and am skeptical of his hesitant steps on some issues pertaining to the closing of Guantanamo Bay and surveillance procedures.
Some of his moves have been surprisingly politically tone-deaf, such as the returning of a bust of Winston Churchill to the UK.
Generally though, I think he’s done fairly well. He’s made some missteps to be sure, but he is clearly learning fast. I don’t see this as a particularly bad thing.
Oh gosh, I wonder where you’ll come down.
You think you know? Seriously?
Can’t tell. Can tell he’s been working his ass off. Dunno if the things he’s doing are the right things. I can tell he hopes they are, and, again, he’s miles ahead of where Clinton and Bush were in selecting his people and taking charge by this time in their presidencies.
So, A for Effort, I can give him. I can’t mark anything else yet. There’s, you know, the monster in the corner and we can’t tell anything till it moves somewhere.
I’ll give another B+, for the reasons just listed by nameless - both positive and negative. (I hadn’t heard about the Winston Churchill thing. I’ll have to look that up.)
Another huge plus - Obama admits mistakes. He said he “screwed up” with some of his cabinet nominees. Now, I’m glad the tax scofflaw bozos are out (mostly out - too late to replace Geitner), but Obama’s cabinet is far above the usual list of croneys, crooks, and pinheads that get confirmed “because the president wants them”. :rolleyes: Yet even with these historically minor problems, Obama admitted that he did wrong - in public, for attribution. And despite the fact that the fault was with somebody else whose advice he took. It’s almost as if he’s taking personal responsibility for the actions of his administration. Naw - that’s crazy talk!
In contrast, Dubya never admitted anything resembling a mistake, and he had the worst presidency in memory, if not since McKinley, if not forever.
Hasn’t invaded anyone yet. B plus.
Way too early to tell. I don’t like that he’s already been to Camp David, though. Bush abused that place.
Much ado about nonsense.
“Oh no, he gave back a statue of a dead guy which we were only borrowing anyway!”
I grew up in England and even I don’t understand why on earth there should be a statue of a foreign head of state in the Oval Office. There certainly isn’t a portrait of FDR hanging in the Prime Minister’s private office in Downing Street.
I’ll give him a C.
He got his stimulus package passed, though watered down and with considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth. He signed the Lily Ledbetter and SCHIP bills, correcting two of the GOP’s more shameful acts of the last few years. The public still pretty strongly backs him and the things he wants to do.
But he’s fallen down in a few big areas:
–He either completely failed to vet several of his nominees, or worse yet, he thought their tax lapses wouldn’t be a big deal. Some were legitimately big deals, and others became big deals by the time they made their way through the mighty Wurlitzer of the right-wing punditry. He should have known that his Cabinet nominees would have to be above reproach.
–He seems like he actually believes the bipartisan bullshit. It’s commendable to be open to ideas from the other side, but the idea that finding common ground is the way to progress is just fantasy. If Obama and the Democrats were to propose the Let’s Not Set Puppies On Fire Act, the Republican leadership would find a reason to not support it. (“What if the puppy is vicious, and he’s attacking a little old lady, and all she has to fight back with is a flame thrower? The Obama-Pelosi plan would turn that little old lady into a criminal!”)
–His continuation of Bush’s “State Secrets” defense in a rendition case was disappointing, and at the very least required a better explanation.
So on balance, I’ll call it a C. My prescription for improvement:
–Don’t let the Republicans control the message. It’s hard, because they’re organized, they’re loud, and they don’t mind lying their asses off in the service of a smear. Obama was much better at fighting back against this during the campaign, and he needs to find some of that magic now.
–This nonsense that it takes 60 Senators to pass legislation needs to be beaten down. At this point people who are moderately politically aware probably think that the constitution is just written that way, when it’s really just because of the threat of filibuster and other procedural shenanigans. The media treat it as a given. The only way to stop this is to make them actually filibuster. (Yes, I know it wasn’t the filibuster that made the stimulus require 60, but you know it’s going to come up soon.)
–He needs to make a couple of big moves in the next few months that demonstrate his commitments to ethics and transparency. “At least he’s not Bush” is only going to get him so far.
How the hell can you grade him one month in to the most challenging presidency in my lifetime?
I give him an Incomplete.
Got him into the White House. 
Tell that to the 17,000 new troops deploying for Afghanistan (new as opposed to moving from Iraq, which if I recall was a campaign promise)
Another B+ . Probably A, if you account for the fact that Obama is facing the worst economic crisis in 70 years. People underestimate how hard it is get an administration up and running while simultaneously pushing a huge stimulus bill and preparing for a gigantic bank rescue. I think that accounts for most of the problems of the last few weeks. And let’s not forget that while the foreign policy area doesn’t have any out-and-out crisis, it is very challenging, a lot more so than faced by either Clinton in 93 or Bush in 2001 when they entered office. Obama has to pay close attention to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan/Pakistan, Israel/Palestine among other things. All in all it’s a hugely complex and challenging situation and he has done admirably so far.
Alright, I told myself I’d wait till there was at least 10 replies. So here goes.
I’m gonna say B-. He’s disappointed me on many levels but he’s still doing a pretty damn good job.
I was really shocked that he was so shocked that the Republicans have continued being the exact same evil douchebags that they’ve been for at least the last 17 year or so despite his “new era of bipartisanship”. I had no idea he was so naive. Like someone said in this thread, it seems he really believed that crap. Well, tough nuggets, Barack. They’re evil, they’re backed into a corner, and they hate you so very very very very very much. They hate you so much because you trounced them, threw their incompetence, evil, greed, and stupidity in their faces, and did it all seemingly without breaking a sweat. They hate you all the more because they have no good reason to hate you, no leverage. And they will throw absolutely everything they can at you to try and find a chink in your armor. Forget fairness, truth, honor, dignity, or even the most basic of decency. You saw how they treated you in the election, how low they stooped, how crazy they got. Well that’s nothing compared to how they’ll be now.
And as people have noted, he’s flipflopped on some key things. I get the feeling he’s just now discovering that his biggest enemy now that he’s in power is not the Republicans, but the established order inside government. He’s finding out that things are far more complicated on the inside than they look from the outside, and the worst part is, I also think he’s finding out, like Carter did, that the biggest problems he’ll have will come from his own party. Pelosi and Reid are just as much part of everything that’s wrong with the inside the Beltway set as any Republican, and their Democratic cronies have been safely out of power for a long time. They have no idea how to actually govern. They’ve played the role of abused wife to the GOP’s raging wifebeater for so long, they are just plain useless as rulers and will take a great deal of whipping into shape.
This “avoid a filibuster at all costs” thing is just a major symptom of this. They are STILL afraid of the Republicans, and you know why? Because that’s comfortable. That’s familiar. That way, they are not really in control, not really being asked to fix a world riddled with problems bigger than anything faced in three generations, not really accountable to the people. Well, gee, we’d love to try and help, but gosh darn those Republicans and their evil filibuster power! Well, guess we’ll go back to cringing in the shadows and being impotent.
So what Obama needs to do is get tough. He can do it, because his popularity is still absolutely unassailable. He needs to say "Go ahead and filibuster. We’ll see who the public blames when things start going down the crapper. " Remeber Gingrich? Remember when he shut down the Federal government? Remember how that was the end of him, he just disappeared after that for a long long time? And that was against Clinton, someone without half the character and popularity of Barack Obama.
And the same with Pelosi and Reid. You have to sit them down and tell them How Things Are Going To Be. Let them know that they’d better get their game face on and stop being the Republican’s bitches or you will hang them out to dry. You will go on TV and tell the world exactly why the hope and change express has become the sorta vaguely different mo-ped.
It’s up to you, Barack. Is it more important to fix the world, or to hold to your let’s-everybody-get-along ideals in a rough and brutal world?
So yeah. B-.
My, my it’s been years since I’ve seen such an example of kremlinology. Obama sends the stupid statue back where it belongs, and people are trying to determine what that implies about Anglo-American relations? England?? Our best ally? That England? You think a bust of Churchill matters?
We shall :rolleyes: on the beaches, we shall :rolleyes: on the landing grounds, we shall :rolleyes: in the fields and in the streets, we shall :rolleyes: in the hills; and we shall never surrender to stupid, pointless, tea-reading, moronic nick-picking RO kerflulles.
Oy, VEY! Some people need a new hobby.
I thought Bush spent all his vacations clearing brush* on his ranch**.
** - Vacation home
Thank you. I think he’s made an outstanding effort at facing our issues head-on and working tirelessly to find answers to utterly impossible problems. We won’t know if it works for a long time. Pretty much every effort he’s made has been criticized by those who were steering us into the rocks, but who have made no reasonable attempt to offer a viable alternative.
Our recovery is going to hurt. We need to think collectively and in the long term rather than what a shitty deal a lot of us are getting when our only crime was playing by the rules.
We won’t know for quite a while whether this is going to work. My grade so far: E for Effort and extra credit for Perfect Attendance.
Bush spent 490 days on his ranch, but Camp David was a close second at 487 days.
Heck, I saw people praising his Presidency long before the man was sworn in.
Obama is not doing as well as I had hoped. The stimulus plan is loaded with garbage. He’s having a hell of a time keeping his administration out of scandals. I think he’s doing the wrong thing for the economy, and it won’t work.
On the other hand, his tone in foreign policy is perfect. I love that he gave that early interview with the Arabic news network, and I love what he said there. Anything that can get the Iranian president to say “okay, maybe they’re not as evil as we thought” about us is serious progress.
I say B-, pending the success or failure of the stimulus package.