Obama so far

Quackers

The Frog
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The Man has been been in the White House since January '09.
I have barely followed American politics in his tenue. One thing I do know is that he passed historic healthcare legislation.

What else has he achieved? What rating would you give him so far? Has he lived up to your expectations? Did he deserve a second term? Is he an all time great President?
All general thoughts are appreciated in this thread. I just want to get a picture of what he has accomplished and how he is viewed.
 
C, C-. He has neither been notably good, nor notably bad. He has faced the most difficult time of any president since at least FDR. Difficult in terms of the economic conditions, the inheritance of wars, and the ugliness of domestic politics. The economic conditions are the worst since FDR was in office. The domestic politics is the worst since Lincoln took office.

Now, given that he has taken office in exceptionally difficult times, what does that mean for his performance? He's muddled through. He hasn't demonstrated a lot in the way of leadership. Nor of vision. On the other hand, he hasn't really made anything all that much worse, either.
 
The domestic politics is the worst since Lincoln took office.


I think it will be even worse for the next president. And worse for the next one after that ...

US politics is so polarized right now, that's it's amazing anything ever gets accomplished. Both sides seem more interested in winning the game than improving the country. It's all about beating the other team, as if it's a damn sporting event. The population at large seems to have the same attitude, and frankly, I don't see things getting better any time soon.
 
Liberal USA voter here.

Obama was a disappointment early in his first term. I'd characterize him as center-right, with a decidedly corporatist bias.

I didn't vote for him, but I preferred him to McCain by a wide margin. I live in NY which was safe for Obama. I didn't have to worry about my vote hurting his chances. I'd I had been in Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, or other weighty swing States, I would have sucked it up and voted for him.

All that said, I still prefer him to either of the Republican candidates that ran against him.

My wife and I went to Times Square to watch the broadcast of his first Inauguration. But not his second.

His health care reform is too little too late and a massive subsidy to for-profit companies. Not something that will count in his favor in the final reckoning. If he hadn't tried to work with a group of people who declared open war on him on day 2 maybe we'd have better legislation.

Obama's mistakes, or failings, are of far lesser severity than GWB or Clinton (debatable).

For me his major failures center around the systemic erosion of constitutional personal rights, institutional legitimization of the worst abuses of the Bush administration, his war against immigration, his utter U-turn on Marijuana prosecution (which is now changing, thankfully), and his retention of Attorney General Holder.
I'll note so extra positives later in thread after my blood stops boiling :lol:
 
Best president since FDR, though LBJ & Eisenhower have good cases as well. Just like those latter two he has MAJOR blemishes on his record. His technocratic/middle-of-the-road fetishism has sapped the enthusiasm of his base, watered down his strongest pieces of legislation, and done nothing to deter the GOP from descending further into nuttitude and dictating much of his agenda.

Still...healthcare reform (which required quite a bit of party discipline), not gleefully cutting welfare spending (like Clinton), and launching the closest thing to a drawback of the military-industrial complex in years (we'll see how it plays out) is not bad compared to the utter travesties of the Nixon, Reagan, and GWB presidencies.

C+
 
I'm honestly surprised nobody has assassinated him, for being black. Well, I suppose there's still time. And he's only half black.

So, well done for surviving this far!
 
Like others have said, he is a middle of the road president. Had some successes, some failures, nothing spectacular either way. I think he is a product of our times and the current political environment. I highly doubt McCain, Romney, Hilary, or any other major politician could have done significantly better.
 
Like all politicians, there's not much good he can or will do. His redeeming quality is that he's less harmful than his opposition.
 
The Man has been been in the White House since January '09.
I have barely followed American politics in his tenue. One thing I do know is that he passed historic healthcare legislation.

What else has he achieved? What rating would you give him so far? Has he lived up to your expectations? Did he deserve a second term? Is he an all time great President?
All general thoughts are appreciated in this thread. I just want to get a picture of what he has accomplished and how he is viewed.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/

Promise Kept: 241 (45%)
Compromise: 131 (25%)
Promise Broken: 115 (22%)
Stalled: 6 (1%)
In the Works: 37 (7%)
Not yet rated: 2 (0%)
 
He is a President as he was a Senator, quite mediocre. I called this.
 
He rammed through the worst possible health care 'reform' that could be thought up, he backstabbed friendly nations, had comical economic recovery programs (cash for clunkers anyone?), need I go on? He's the worst President since Carter, and maybe even Harding.
 
He talks a good talk about environmental issues but hasn't done enough in that regard. He talks a good talk in general but it gets old quickly, his voice annoys me now to the point I can't even listen to his blathering. Govt spying, drones, his empty-promises about govt. transparency.

He's an embarrassment to liberals. The reason anyone even buys into right-wing propaganda (besides stupidity) is because the left is so damn uninspiring.
 
His derping around making committees regarding patent trolling is dumb, when he should just declare all software patents invalid.

His hostility towards Snowden is embarrassing.

He generally kowtows to big businesses.

I think the current political climate and system in the US makes it essentially impossible to be a legitimately good president.
 
He's an embarrassment to liberals.
Perhaps because Obama clearly isn't one? If anything, he is an "embarrassment" to authoritarian conservatives, much like most other American politicians.

What is a shame is that Obama started out as a moderate who wasn't nearly so authoritarian.
 
Perhaps because Obama clearly isn't one? If anything, he is an "embarrassment" to authoritarian conservatives, much like most other American politicians.

What is a shame is that Obama started out as a moderate who wasn't nearly so authoritarian.

I know, it's weird what stuff can happen when people throw away their principles to follow a trendy cult of personality, right?

Thankfully, the same people who nominated and voted for Obama twice will make amends by nominating Hillary, who is TOTALLY different than Obama and definitely won't be making the exact same complaints in 2016.


I gotta say, this meme irks me a little considering how much blaming he did the whole time he was running for office and for the first couple years

Not that some of it wasn't justified, but come on.
 
A disappointment. At least I have to look forward getting raises that are at the minimum wage levels each year up to $10.10 on 2017 :rolleyes:.

Should have voted for McCain or Romney back then. But I was a stupid liberal who drank from the "Anyone but Bush/Bush-Clone" punch bowl.
 
I'd give him maybe a C-/D+ right now but his second term seems to be improving from an abysmal first term that saw the death of the public option and capitulation to his Republican counterparts. The ACA as is helps me a lot more than the general public so I'm not entirely upset with a pragmatic victory but the legislation ultimately stalls the US from join the rest of the civilized world. His strength comes from excellent foreign policy skills and a lack of any long term damage like the repeal of Glass–Steagall or signing of DOMA under Clinton.
 
I'm honestly surprised nobody has assassinated him, for being black. Well, I suppose there's still time. And he's only half black.

So, well done for surviving this far!

Considering that Joe Biden would take over, I'd say he is as safe as can be. Nobody wants that idiot in charge. he is like somebody's crazy uncle that shows up at holidays. Biden's incompetence makes me question Delaware's judgment considering how many times they have re-elected him.

I'd say our first affirmative action president has been a complete failure. Take away his skin tone and he never gets in the primary let alone wins. People voted for him to show that they themselves are not racist. He was on the Harvard Law Review but never wrote anything, the first one ever to do that. Was he just a token minority there? It appears that he has skated through life being packaged into one position after another due to his minority status. Take away the sealed divorce documents of Jack and Jeri Ryan being mysteriously released and Obama loses the Senate race in 2004.

He won the Nobel Peace Prize for ???????? Seriously, he was in office for like nine days when he was nominated. If there was any doubt that the Nobel committee still had any relevance this proved it to be nothing but a progressive shill.

In his first two years he had both the Senate and the House and he did what with unlimited power? Billions handed out to his corporate cronies in financial sectors and to his green energy boondoggles. Solyandra anyone??

He has made race more of a dividing issue than any President. From not prosecuting the New Black Panthers in the voter intimidation case, to interjecting himself in the Cambridge and the Trayvon incidents, his first instinct is always to divide us into colors not unite us.

His foreign policies have insulted our allies and emboldened our enemies. He returned the Churchill bust to England due to his anti-colonialism upbringing. When England gave him a pen set carved from the wood that was used in both the desks from the Oval office and the Queen's his gift was a few DVDs from the White House gift shop. Talk about insulting.

The "reset button" that he and Hillary gave to Russia actually said "overcharge" due to a bad translation. How can the President's people be so incompetent as to screw this type of thing up?

His speech in Cairo apologizing for America and his groveling at the feet of foreign kings was insulting and demeaning.

He took a longtime strategic ally in Egypt and threw him under the bus. He then backed the terrorist muslim brotherhood but only until they started to act like they always said they would. Then he threw them under the bus. Now everyone in Egypt hates us and does not trust us, both sides - that takes real skill to be that incompetent.

After victory was achieved in Iraq he pulled all the troops and ensured that our enemies would be able to regroup and retake parts of the country. Leaving some in the bases that were already there would have helped stabilize the country.

In Afghanistan he sent thousands of more troops in when they were not needed and set up more restrictive rules of engagement to ensure that they would be both ineffective and more likely to be killed.

With Iran after years of sanctions starting to have a real effect on the government there he stops after they promise to be nice, just like what North Korea did with Clinton. That really worked out well for us didn't it?

When Iran had a mini revolution of people seeking freedom his response was to ignore it and allow it to be crushed.

When a US ambassador was brutally sodomized and killed in Benghazi he lied about what happened and blamed it on a youtube video instead of his administrations lack of ability in protecting America from terrorism. This was purely for political gain as there was an election coming up and being seen for the weak and ineffectual leader that he is just would not do.

Take away the media covering up his every failure and this clown would be openly laughed at and mocked for the failure he is. His every action seems to be the one that will cause America the most trouble, it makes you wonder if he is that incompetent or is he doing it on purpose?
 
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