He has achieved a measure of progress on many issues and he's been stymied or even disappointing on others. But, he has a clear, pragmatic strategy that he is never shaken from. He stays above the fray - and that can be frustrating when you want him to throw elbows - but he displays enormous amounts of patience through the ebbs and flows of the national political game. These are the reasons I think that he has kept his powder dry on the early Obamacare successes. I think he'll unleash the Obamacare hounds in mid- to late- summer for a powerful summer-fall push for Dem candidates before the election. I think the GOP ought to be worried. I hope I'm right.

Some big mistakes... Some things could have been done better, or even done... But over all when I consider the massive shit sandwich he was given after the criminal bush... I'll go B+.

I would give him hired votes if he could do something ..... anything to put people to work by building / cleaning up the US infrastructure.


America’s publicly owned infrastructure is falling apart. One in nine bridges in the United States is “structurally deficient.” There are 240,000 water main breaks each year. Thirty-two percent of America’s roads are in “poor or mediocre condition.” Amtrak’s Acela (which I am riding right now) is on time only 65.2 percent of the time, and runs at a top speed well below that achieved by fast trains overseas. Then there are the failings of airports like New York’s LaGuardia, which Vice President Joe Biden rightly likened last month to “some third-world country.” To add insult to injury, our long, harsh winter has only added to the long list of infrastructure repairs needed across the United States. So it’s not surprising that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the United States a D+ on its latest report card for America’s infrastructure.

The consequence of a fraying infrastructure is a less productive economy, which means fewer jobs and less wealth, and the hassle of taking longer to do less. It also slowly erodes the wellsprings of U.S. influence abroad. National power isn’t independent of the domestic economy; it rests on a vibrant economy. And the weakness of America’s infrastructure opens up the possibility of events that could dramatically change life as we know it. By some accounts, the destruction of as few as nine power substations could cause the entire U.S. electric power grid to collapse—and to stay down for months.


Repairing America’s infrastructure will cost billions. And as anyone who owns a house knows, putting the fix off only means a steeper final bill.

http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2014/03/24/how-do-we-pay-to-repair-americas-decaying-infrastructure/

He also inherited a Clown Congress that wouldn't let him bury it.

I think he's done a stellar job given the many constraints he's faced. While there have been times I'd like to shake him and ask him what the hell he's thinking, most of those times it's turned into rope-a-dope with Republicans who really would pull the shit he's only said is on the table. He's done nothing to help it along.

And so did my good friend Lloyd.

Regards,

Jamie Dimon

so you don't have to be cute.

and post a link to what you're referring to so DU's readership can see just how debauched I am?

Thanks!

Ego-stroked Manny

apparently, Obama simply cannot do any better - he is PRICELESS AS IS!

Both will be back to the brink soon enough.

.... I'm not sure whether the auto company bailouts were under Bush or Obama.

But don't take my word for it:

Some good, some bad.

he could have been, should have been, SOOOO much better

Most of my disappointment is with the things he didn't do than what he did.

That's a lot of accumulated extra credit. The world is a far different place now than it was in Jan 2009 and that's a very good thing.

look like a drunken weekend fistfight.

IMHO, that is.

right-wing than he actually is.

Coming after an actual decent President, of the kind we haven't had since at least LBJ and arguably since FDR, it would be more like a C-/D+, to be perfectly honest.

I like President Obama, but how could he have genuinely earned an A+ given the drone attacks, the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open, and the NSA scandal?

FDR saved the world, but even he loses some credit for stuff such as the internment camps. I would probably give him an A-.

so the people claiming A+ are making fools of themselves

Obama has been trying to shut down Guantanamo since his first week in office and reversed a worldwide financial crisis of biblical proportions. Instead of herding us into camps which is where we were headed he gave us ACA. He also extracted us from of two disastrous quagmires, more or less honorably. That's an A+ in my book.

That just about takes the cake. Now I've seen it all.

His greatest accomplishment was any type of healthcare reform but he gave up on a public option rather than fighting for it. I am all for pragmatism but he gave up a little too soon.

He didn't go after anyone responsible for the 2008 mortgage crisis and didn't fight for any reforms.

The drones and NSA spying and internet neutrality, all wishy washy. And he let them go on.

I knew when the MSM pulled him from nowhere with no D.C. experience he would be overwhelmed by Washington politics much like Jimmy Carter was, and it has been proved right. Despite a "good heart" he can't really connect with your average Joe in a speech to get the people behind his message. It is always "this is the right thing to do" but "I am willing to do the wrong thing if that is pragmatic". Once you are President you have to dig your heels in and do the right thing even when it is not the most popular or requires making enemies if you want to be great. He is just settling--settling to be a two term President rather than a great President. I understand the politics and it would have been terribly hard to always be optimistic during very bad times with the "too big to fail" banks threatening you but that is what it would have taken to be great.

Hilary would not have been much better and would have been more trigger happy to get us involved in another military adventure to prove that a woman President could be "tough", so I can't say Obama has been the worst choice. I thought he would be eaten up by Washington and he was, I only wish he had started out a little "tougher" and been beaten down rather than giving in without a fight right from the start.

Much of my disapproval is because he allowed many unsavory previous policies from the bush administration to continue unabated like the drone policy and the NSA spying stuff. He could do substantially more to get us out of Afghanistan sooner and I hope everyone remembers his eagerness to get the US involved in Syria. I'm not at all happy with the Pacific/Asian pivot thing he is doing with our military either. We as a nation need to quit setting ourselves up for future military standoffs by building tension for no good reason.

As you mentioned, the lack of prosecution of bankers after they crashed our economy and ruined the lives and futures of millions of Americans is another one of my major sticking points. I'm not at all happy about the TPP that he has been peddling.

Obamacare is a step in the right direction, but as you mentioned he didn't even try to fight for single payer.

I absolutely shutter at the possibilities of what it would have been like had Hillary Clinton been president (or what it'll be like if she is president one day in the future). At best, it's going to be more of the same that we've seen for the last 6ish years.

Yup, Obama gets a "D" from me.

I'm keeping in mind that he doesn't have a Democratic House, he's catching shit from right wingers, libertarians, and "attack from the left" faux ultra-liberals who are carrying water for other agencies, and that a not inconsequential segment of the nation believes that he is a usurper,owing to his melanin content, they spread lies about the circumstances of his birth, they cast aspersions on his dead mother, they go out of their way to invent stories about him to put him in a bad light.

Consequently, he has to work twice as hard to get half the credit. And that's on an easy day.

If you send a small child off to kindergarten with no crayons, no paper, no shoes, no breakfast, no sleep, and no coat, and they still manage to learn those ABCs, they deserve an A plus, too.

You've gotta consider the starting point, after all.

He does have to work twice as hard to get half the credit. Which is one reason why I give him a C/C+ rather than something lower.

Overall, I think he's destined to be another Bill Clinton - brilliant man, mediocre President.

If we can give kids trophies for simply showing up to practice every week, I can throw a little gravy on my POTUS grade to tasty it up. If I were in a lousy mood, I'd give him an A for the same reasons. The fact that I'm in a good mood gives me a lean toward the "plus."

I thought Bill Clinton was a flawed fellow but a wonderful President. He stopped--in its tracks--the inexorable march towards All GOP Bullshit, All The Time. Yes, he had to compromise and half-step to do that, and some purists didn't like his approach, but he did what he could, not what he'd have liked, and in any event, the alternative would have been horrific. All that Reagan-Bush stink is STILL being felt in Federal government as a consequence of the system that gives political appointees a leg up in converting their service from discretionary to "civil service." And once in, it's hard as hell to shift the bastards. They're still there and they will hang on until they can max out their retirement or they are pushed out in a drawdown/payoff.

Believe me, the 'reverb' from Cowboy Bush will continue to be felt down the years, because so many of his incompetent asshole appointees slid into civil service positions--the revolving door was whirring to beat the band while he was in office. The only way to fight that fire is with fire of our own, which is why elections matter, both at the legislative and executive level of federal government, AND at the state and local level as well. That dorky little alderman, today, could be the mayor tomorrow, the governor next week, and a Senator or President in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

A President has to work with the government he's got--and POTUS hasn't gotten many favors on that score at all.

To a great degree, there's only one thing left from the Clinton years, and that's NAFTA. Virtually every other significant act is gone. DOMA, DADT, even the banking reforms are all gone. The Israeli peace accords are all but dead. Welfare reform is maybe the one other act that survives his presidency. He did declare the era of big goverment was over, but of course Obama has basically abandoned that (as did Bush to some extent).

in a completely selfish and self-centered way, because it has caused some personal pain to my relations--are the same people that think that people all around the globe deserve a "living wage."

The thing is, all of these trade agreements are going to fuck over somebody. If we really "think globally" we want those poor folks in those far off countries to make more than pennies per day as they make our clothes and running shoes.

Yet, by the same token, we don't want to be part of trade agreements that will raise the salaries of "those people" because they'll cut into OUR paychecks.

We can either put our money where our global mouths are...or not.

No one would mind a "Fair Trade" policy which ensured that our workers and their workers had living wages, workman's comp, social security, OSHA, environmental regulations etc. What we do mind is saying it's okay to treat their workers like crap, while putting workers who DO have those protections out of work.

The bottom line is that there's no incentive for nations with an exploitable workforce to raise wages without these sorts of agreements--if it gets too expensive in one country, corporations simply move to a cheaper country and exploit those workers instead. Corporations, for their part, will always chase the cheapest solution unless and until it gets to be too much of a pain in the ass and lacks sufficient "value added" to make it worth their while.

In the short term these agreements are certainly not without pain for fully developed nations, no one will deny that, but governments of emerging or newly industrialized nations desperate for a cash influx aren't going to put their foot down and demand better wages for their people when any wage at all, and any money coming into their economy, are better than none.

In the long term these agreements make it harder and harder for corporations to go to distant lands to save a few cents here and there, and after a while, they cut the crap, stop chasing pennies, and simply go to where the population is best suited to deliver the products to the applicable markets, relying on operational efficiencies and a smarter workforce to make up the difference.

It's not going to happen overnight, though. You can't have "fair" trade until everyone playing the game is treated fairly.

The structure should be to incentivize countrys to establish the labor markets to be fair to labor. That incentive is access to larger markets such as ours. Instead we offer them access to markets hoping that they'll evolve into better labor markets. That's basically a "trickle down" approach. It isn't working and all it's doing is declining the labor market here (which is why middle class incomes have stagnated over the last 30 years).

which creates consumers for our stuff. These "labor markets" are fine for the fat cats who think it's ok to pay a ten year old kid a dollar a day. It's a bit more complicated when their are standards of salary, hours and safety put in place, and the people working in the offshore factories aren't working to live, but working to provide a better life--to include the joys of consumerism--for themselves and their families.

They need to raise the minimum wage here, too. They pay well at Costco and Costco is doing well. There's a connection, there, that the fat cats ignore. They are pennywise and pound foolish, if you will.

Your advocating downward pressure on wages in regulated markets to expand into unregulated markets in hope that it will ultimately cause upward pressure on wages and working conditions in those markets.

I'm advocating upward pressure on wages and regulations through incentives to access larger markets, and preserve wages and regulations in the existing regulated markets.

are too conservative for my taste. Which is rather often.

non-stop withering opposition from the right on anything he tried to do including fix the economy puts the lower limit on his grade at around B in my opinion.

He gets points for getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, fully integrating LGBT into the military and other pro-LGBT initiatives and executive orders, the affordable care act, getting bin Laden, and standing up to Putin. Those take his grade from B to A+.

That's hardly acceptable as a Democrat.

Funny how the bar is raised so high when it's someone on our team.

You think we would have done better under President "Peacenik" McCain, is that it? Or maybe President Plowshares Mitt?

How many were there when he started? I think you'll find it is roughly exactly what there is there now. If he had listened to Biden, he'd be out by now.

back then.

Trying to "git Bin Ladin" by way of Baghdad was a non-starter from the "git-go."

You can't claim that Obama's surge was "primed" by Bush when in fact Obama himself was asking for that very thing.

Commitments were made under Bushco, you don't turn the spigot off that easily. And once you start shutting off that spigot in one country, you can't just demob a huge percentage of your military without severe aftershocks to your own economy. That's why a lot of IWVs ended up doing a tour or two in the Stan.

The bottom line is that Bush started wars, Obama ends them. Military end strength is on a downward trajectory.

But for some it's just Never Good Enough.

And he thanked Bush for getting that started. He did it over the advice of his VP who advocated a quicker draw down.

Thanks to Bush.......

comfortable with that too.

squandered.

Yes he got healthcare 'reform' but who got the windfall?
The insurance companies.
What about big pharma charging whatever they want? Oil depletion, WALL STREET doing it again?
Yes I realize he cannot change some of them, but how about using the bully pulpit? The executive order?
Too much kowtowing to the moneyed and not enough for the average joe.

Now I await the inevitable 'you just don't get 9th dimension chess'

What is the solution to U.S. pharmacies charging 3 times as much as Canadian pharmacies for the same name brand products and Americans having to buy their critical medicines from another country to get a fair price? Crack down on U.S. citizens buying their pharmaceuticals at a price that the rest of the world considers fair market value, so they have no choice but to pay whatever exorbitant price is dreamed up by the manufacturer. Ugh!

He should have reformed Medicare part D. That would have had very little political consequence--who is going to argue with Medicare getting a fair price for volume buying? Not your average Joe.

who cares if insurance companies make money? I don't. I care if they are making money while dropping or denying coverage.

Most liberals when is comes to "health" insurance, you excluded. You left that very important word out of there. As if we are against all insurance companies making money.

healthcare.

until then, suffice it to say, I think Obama has done a good job under extremely difficult circumstances, I think this in spite of my complaints and disappointments.

It's the grade Cambridge University awards when, for some reason, they weren't able to examine the student, but they think they would have passed if they had.

I think Obama will be remembered as the President held back by the most obstructive Congress in a long time.

you capitalists want him to do. He inherited a mess and at least is an adult trying to do a better job than the moron who preceded him.

I don't like the nonsense in Ukraine but I'm pretty sure the CIA is charge of that job.

We really need to get rid of this economic system and the entire Military/Industrial complex.

Like every president, he's had some missteps, but overall, I couldn't ask for better, IMHO.

ago - I knew I was not supporting a social democrat or a New Deal Democrat. Given how extreme and how ruthless and out and out batshit crazy the Republican Party has become. Given what the media accepts as the "sensible center" which thirty years ago would have been the far right - Given these realities - Even though President Obama is still a corporate centrist "New Democrat" - he has done a bit better than I expected - Compared to Clinton who did more to dismantle the New Deal Social contract and the reforms of a more progressive era than Ronald Reagan could have ever hoped to have accomplished - I suppose President Obama is doing better than average.

If it were not for that, I would have given him a D.

He has done a lot of good for the LGBT community.

Otherwise I would have given him an F.

Because, everything else he's accomplished has been center-right.

I'd give him D for looking forward, bankster appointees & TPP.

I elevate him to a C for the grace & aplomb he has displayed at the shameful & stunning hate thrown toward him & his family, by not only fellow countrymen, but fellow public servants as well. Joe Wilson's disgraceful "You lie," comes to mind, but there have been others. No other president has been treated so disrespectfully & I think it just burns the right that this man responds in the manner he does.

I'm being generous too and taking into account what he was given.

That's not what I voted for, but it's what we got.

I think he's done as well as could be expected considering the divisiveness and horrible issues that he inherited and has had to deal with.

Certainly, there have been times when I didn't agree with his decisions, but overall, I think he's doing a good job.

Thought about bumping it to a B, for all the wars he's avoided that a republican would have gotten us straight into, but remembered the TPP and the medical marijuana raids, and kept it at C+...

Walked into a nightmare situation and just as the ship got righted the whole world blew up and everything changed. Incredibly antagonistic media and opposition party. Ended one war, ending another, got OBL, saved GM and the economy, got SOME SORT of actual 21st century healthcare going. Could put his foot on the neck of the NSA and should have closed Gitmo but he (they) had to pick which fights to fight.

do you not want to tell us what you think of Obama?

I'd go with B-.