Throughout the first four years of Obama, the President has been one of the most simultaneously galvanizing and polarizing figures in US history. His supporters are quick to point out the legislative accomplishments of his first two years, and his detractors are quicker to mudsling him with the terms “socialist” or “fascist” without realizing what either of those two terms actually mean. Those who continue supporting him admire Obama with the same reverence the right felt for Reagan, and those who swear against him believe he is the second coming of Carter. After following Obama’s presidency very closely in the last four years, and personally living through the bust of the 2008 recession and the more recent “booms,” I find Obama to be none of the above.
When the United States finished a horrific eight years of Bush, I voted for Barack Obama in confidence that he would do the right thing in allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire and recoup some of the deficit. I voted for Obama in confidence that he would uphold the traditional idea that the Democratic Party is the anti-war party. I voted for Obama with the expectation to honor his promise and end the Iraq war on Day 1 of his presidency. Obama ran one of the most prolific campaigns in the history of the United States. From Twitter to Facebook to Monday Night Football, his message of positivity and getting America back on solid footing was captivating and flooded every medium. Regardless of party affiliation, there were aspects of his messaging that spoke beyond the polarizing demagoguery we’ve become accustomed to in modern politics. “There is not a liberal America, there is not a conservative America, there is a United States of America,” was one of my favorites from him, delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 before he even ascended to US Senator. It signaled the coming of a President who transcended party politics and who wanted to take the dismal situation inherited from Bush and restore us to Clinton era levels of prosperity.
So how has a Barack Obama presidency panned out? It’s been a mixed bag of improvement and regression, of social progress and economic deterioration, of improved diplomatic relations abroad, yet Orwellian foreign policy. It’s hard to completely peg him as the savior post Bush, yet even more difficult to classify him as the harbinger of the dark lord as Fox News has done time and time again. This blog evaluated President Obama on the criteria of foreign affairs, foreign policy, the economy, civil liberties, and bipartisanship. Weigh in, post your thoughts, and share how you feel about Obama’s presidency.
Foreign Affairs: A
Note: foreign affairs, by definition are non-violent, diplomatic relations between nations. The “speaking softly” component, if you will.
When President Obama took office after eight years of Bush, there was a lot of cleaning up to do. Bush had taken the unprecedented move of invading Iraq without the consent of the UN Security Council to the ire of the European world. Under eight years of Bush, chicken-hawkish neocon foreign policy tainted American relations abroad, with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage once threatening Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf to “bomb Pakistan to the stone age” if they did not help in the fight against Al Qaeda.
Many have criticized the Obama administration as not doing enough for Israel, to which I would disagree. Whereas the Bush administration gave Israel a blank slate and a blank check to defend itself, Obama has remained diplomatic in his rhetoric and seems to have a genuine desire to avert war with Iran.
Under Obama, according to Factcheck.org, Japanese approval of the US has gone up 22%, 27% by the French, 7% by the Brits, and 3% by the Turks. If that isn’t a successful foreign affairs President in comparison to eight years of Bush, I don’t know what is.
Foreign Policy: D+
The only reason Obama has not received an F from me is because of “Operation Neptune Spear,” or the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. Obama’s foreign policy has been nothing short of a disaster.
Though perhaps naive, Obama declared on October 27, 2007: “I will promise you this: that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am President, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home; we will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.”
For anyone who realized how wasteful the Iraq War was, both from a human life cost to the toll taken on the US Budget, Obama’s promise was bold, yet believable. Obama’s purported pacifism duped the American people into thinking his ascent to the executive would end all foreign wars, and he even beguiled the Nobel Peace Prize committee into awarding him the prestigious prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” To address his promises to redeploy troops to the United States (sarcasm), Obama began his presidency with a 17,000 troop surge in February of 2009. By December of that year, he sent another 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, and increased the $616B Bush spent in defense funds in 2008 to $767B for his current budget.
The 47,000 troop surge in Afghanistan wouldn’t lead to desired results, but more moving targets for the insurgency to pick off. According to CNS News:
“During the Bush presidency, which ended on Jan. 20, 2009 with the inauguration of President Obama, U.S. troops were present in Afghanistan for 87.4 months and suffered 570 casualties—a rate of 6.5 deaths per month.
During the Obama presidency, through today, U.S. troops have been present in Afghanistan for 29.1 months and have suffered 970 casualties—a rate of 33.3 deaths per month.”
Then he initiated a bombing campaign in Yemen (which would lead to the assassination of American born cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki). Then Somalia. Then Pakistan. And then of course, there was the War in Libya, entered illegally without the approval of Congress.
Unfortunately, Obama’s failures have extended beyond the Middle East, with the now infamous “Fast and Furious” scandal, a program Attorney General Eric Holder allowed under his watch.
Americans expected Obama to usher in an era of peace. Under four years of Obama, we got kill-lists, drones, escalated wars, and $5T in new debt as a result.
The Economy: D
Beginning with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Obama and a democratically controlled supermajority in Congress passed a $787B Keynesian behemoth under the pretenses that the law would create three million jobs. When retiring Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) came to visit my alma mater (Brandeis), I asked him how we could justify spending $787B when our deficit was already sky high. Frank thoughtfully answered that this law was the modern day version of FDR’s “New Deal,” an answer that I accepted at the time.
In reality, the results of the law paled in comparison to any of FDR’s policies. At best, according to a recent study from Ohio State University, ARRA created a mere 800,000 jobs. $499B of the money from the stimulus was actual Government spending—resulting in a cost of $623,750/job. For a guy who promised to halve the deficit by 2013, burning off another $787B turned a reasonable goal into a pipe dream.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) now coined “Obamacare” by both conservatives and liberals created regulations within the bill that ordered employers to provide insurance for any more than 49 workers. Beginning in 2014, employers with more than 50 full-time employees will be required to pay $750 in fines to the federal government if they do not cover health insurance. While health care is no doubt an important component in a modern day hierarchy of needs, Obama’s policies have made it difficult for low income earners to be hired. Passing such a law (namely that provision) during a crippling recession was a head scratcher, one that would have (perhaps) made perfect sense during an economic boom.
What you now have, under Obama’s economy, are:
- 47 million people on food stamps, 14 million more than when Bush took office.
- Only 54% of the country paying income taxes now.
- 4.6 million people dropping out of the job market, bringing the real unemployment rate to 16%
- Median household income falling $4,000 under Obama
Yes Democrats, he inherited a mess from Bush. But he took the nuclear fallout and peed on the pile. D rating.
Civil Liberties/Rights: D
I’ll give Obama credit for being the first President to vouch for the right to gay marriage, though in a disingenuous political move, he did so the day after North Carolina voted to ban it as a means of energizing his political base. I’ll give Obama credit for instructing the judiciary to stop prosecuting enforcement of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and I’ll give Obama credit for pushing to end the ridiculous Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policies.” No one comes close to progressing gay rights in this country as much as President Obama, and he gets an A- from me in that regard.
Where Obama gets an F however, is in…well…everything else. The constitution clearly states “No person shall be denied life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Yet, on December 31st, 2011, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA2012), which was in effect, a repeal of the 5th amendment (sections 1031 and 1032). The law allows the United States Military to detain American citizens without trial, without charge, and without due process of law. Anyone the state declares a terrorist can now be arrested because someone declares them to be an enemy. The law, in effect also overturned the “Posse Comitatus Act,” which was passed in 1878 at the end of Reconstruction to limit the power of using military personnel to enforce the laws of the US. In other words, it was a check against the Government perpetuating an all-out police state.
As much as I hate the TSA body scanners (and TSA for that matter), it’s hard to argue that I am not forfeiting my rights getting on an airplane. Yet, for those who are aware of Obama’s “TSA VIPR” program, it’s hard to say that logic applies to driving on a federal highway and allowing your car to be searched. Alas and alack, that’s another policy Obama has pushed for.
If George W. Bush set the bar for usurping civil rights, Obama one-upped him, even assassinating an American citizen and creating kill lists. Al-Awlaki was entitled to 5th and 6th amendment rights, which respectively state “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury…” and “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” Al-Awlaki was never charged with a crime, and was assassinated simply because the Obama administration declared him an enemy of the state. Al-Awlaki’s radicalism would indicate that he was indeed a proponent of violence against the United States, but the President, despite believing otherwise, is not the judge, jury, and executioner.
Months before the assassination of Al-Awlaki occurred, Presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul wrote in his book Liberty Defined, addressing Al-Awlaki and the order to kill him:
“Government, once given power thought to be very limited in scope, is never restrained in expanding the use of its new-gotten power…Enough Americans need to wake up and change this dangerous trend. But first they have to come to understand why no person should be exempt from the Bill of Rights when charged with violating U.S. law. The Constitution protects “persons,” not just “citizens…No war has been declared. The executive branch cannot ordain a war. The Congress and the courts are derelict in their duty if they do nothing to stop the madness of targeting American citizens for assassination before this evil precedent is perpetuated and more frequently used” (Paul 14-15).
I could go on to discuss the torturing of Wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning. But I fear I’ve already bored you enough, so I’ll just leave a before and after picture for your viewing of what this administration has done to him.
Bi-partisanship: Incomplete, or mutual douchebaggery
No one is going to argue that the right has shown a complete unwillingness to meet the Democratic Party in the middle on just about anything. Alas, the same could be said of the Democratic Party meeting the right. The hallmark pieces of Obama legislation in term one were:
- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
- The Affordable Care Act (ACA)
- Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform
All were passed when Obama had a super majority (for those of you who don’t know, a supermajority is when a party has majority in the house and enough votes for cloture in the Senate). These votes played out as follows:
ARRA
Obama Care
Dodd-Frank
What you need to take away from this is almost no Republicans voted on any of these pieces of legislation. Is that a sign of super majority bullying? Or is it a sign of a complete unwillingness from the right to come to the table on any of these? Could be a combination of both. My guess is the first. According to Bob Woodward, in his new book The Price of Politics, after the vote for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), house majority leader Eric Cantor told then chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel “you really could have gotten some of our support”— if it weren’t for the president’s “arrogance.”
Then, there was the fiscal crisis and Obama’s attempt at a grand bargain. Hard to blame the President exclusively for S&P’s downgrade of the US bond rating to a AA+, but ultimately, the President is the captain of the ship. In the conclusion of The Price of Politics, Woodward had a damning assessment of Obama’s ability to cross the aisle:
Yes, he acknowledges, Obama inherited a “faltering economy and faced a recalcitrant Republican opposition. But presidents,” he says, “work their will — or should work their will — on the important matters of national business.” Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton largely did, he concludes. “Obama has not.”
Obama gets an “incomplete, or mutual douchebaggery” for bipartisanship, because even though he has shown complete incompetence in bargaining with the right, it would seem that the right has also shown unwillingness in coming to the table with him as well.
Overall: C-
Obama came in with a multitude of campaign promises; most importantly, to halve the deficit by 2013 and to end Bush’s wars. Regrettably, he has only managed to reduce the rate of spending growth by 1.2%, but hasn’t actually cut any spending. As a result, he has generated $5T in new debt in his presidency. While Iraq has largely drawn down, we continue waging war in Afghanistan in the US’s longest war in history—a problem created by his predecessor that he has failed to address.
The partisan politics played while he held the super majority alienated the minority party, creating a deadlock in the Congress that led to our first AA+ downgrade in United States history. His inability to oversee a successful debt deal was only half the equation, with ideologues such as Eric Cantor unwilling to meet in the middle in increasing revenues. Thus, an incomplete.
And finally, on the topic of civil liberties, Obama has done an excellent job in progressing gay rights in the United States, ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” halting the prosecution of states for not enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and becoming the first President to publicly advocate for gay marriage. But gay rights have only had constitutional justification since the passage of the 14th amendment. Civil liberties that have existed since the drafting of the constitution, such as the right to a fair trial, the right to a speedy trial, and extending these rights to all Americans have vanished under Obama after his passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA2012).
To successfully complete a second term, Obama must refocus his priorities to:
- Debt reduction by any means possible
- Ending all foreign conflicts abroad (Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia)
- Preventing war with Iran by all means possible
- Continuing to advocate for marriage equality
- Exploring the possibility of drawing down the war on drugs
- Restoring the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments
- Suspending the small business regulations within Obamacare
- Replacing Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve
- Passing immigration reform without unilateral use of executive order
- Restoration of American credit to AAA.
Completing agenda item 1, or as many as possible would cause this blog to view him more favorably and perhaps move his presidency closer to a Clinton level of an “A” rating. Until then, I will continue face-palming, complaining in public forums, and calling out friends angrily on social media.
