As Barack Obama’s presidency enters its final six months, is it too early to grade the Obama presidency? Let’s get a head start, concentrating on a handful of core issues: Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign policy more generally, the economy, healthcare reform, fiscal policy, general atmospherics. Is there anything else I should add? Feel free to suggest more categories in the comments.
I’ve been reading commentary from strong partisans, either claiming that President Obama will go down in history as one of the great presidents or that he’s been an awful president. My preliminary opinion is that President Obama is neither a hero nor a goat and has been at best an average president but I’m still in the information-gathering phase.
– Gays. Whether you view it as a good thing or a bad thing, this administration has been amazingly effective at promoting the Gay Agenda (which is just equality for gays…)
– Blacks. Are blacks receiving more unequal treatment than before his Presidency? Is it being reported more?
– Drug War. States are legalizing marijuana, and the federal government is looking the other way.
– Gun Control. For years we have been promised that Obama was going to take away everyone’s guns and it would be an end to the second Amendment. He only has six months left. Complete failure.
– Domestic terrorism. So far, we haven’t had any successful plots of more than two people, and even then they are related. Lone nut attacks are up.
– Was anything structural in the economy fixed after the 2008 collapse, or are we still in significant danger?
Overall, I don’t think Obama has been as effective at getting his policies enacted as either Reagan or Bush 2, but he has been pushing policies that are better for America. More effective than Clinton.
He did succeed on Healthcare, where everyone had failed before him, but with a deeply compromised solution. Bush 2 failed to privatize social security, which is the rough equivalent Republican dream project, so we could make a case that Obama was more effective. Bush 2 got his disasterous war, Medicare Part D, and No Child Left Behind, and lots of deregulation, whereas Obama got little else.
De-Ba’ath-ification doomed Iraq to be a disaster, and set the stage for the rise of ISIS. I think Obama been mediocre at handling the fallout — which puts him way above the guy who created the mess in my book.
A constant disappointment with the Obama presidency has been how his messaged leadership has divided races, genders, classes, rather than bringing people together under a common roof of the United States. Being a bi-racial president, I originally anticipated that he would use his blended ethnicity to lower lingering barriers still separating our citizen color wheel. But just the opposite has happened with more anger, suspicion, and violence erupting in the last 7+ years since the days of civil rights marches.
I also think his fiscal policies lengthened the economic despair following the ’08 crash. His cascade of regulations has strangled small business formation — where more are failing then are being created as of now. Poverty levels are higher, wages have stagnated, the ME is in chaos — the list of negatives is simply too long to enumerate.
With all this in mind, though, Obama will probably be remembered fondly by his base, and negatively viewed by all others. However, the fact he was the “first Black President” will forever give him a special historical placement, over and above what people personally think of his policies or overall performance.
Iraq is worse since when Obama took office, Afghanistan is no better, the War Against Militant Islamism is worse. Our relationship with Russia is worse and with China is no better. As a war president, Obama has been terrible.
Diplomatically, the only countries we’ve improved relations with are Iran and Cuba. I call that a failure.
Economically, we’ve had uneven progress at best. I give him a C because he’s been no better than average.
As a leader he’s been terrible. He’s a divider, not a uniter.
As a defender of the Constituion, he’s been terrible. Mr. Friedersdorf has spelled it out in detail.
On Obamacare, there have been some good things and some outright failures. I give him a B.
Overall, I give him somewhere between a C and a D.