Returning to Grade Obama
Sunday, January 31st, 2010Hello everyone who still might have this blog in their reader. I’ve decided that if Rick Sanchez is deemed worthy enough to have his own show, I’m worthy enough to throw out some opinions about politics. Also, Jonathan and I hope to get some other writers on here. For now, though, I’ll just do a quick grading of Obama’s first year.
- Civil Rights: F
- Economy: D
- National Security: C
- Energy Policy: D
- Education: F
- Health Care: D:
- Fiscal Responsibility: F
Overall, I think it was a pretty poor year for the President because he showed a lack of real leadership, and deferred to Congress on most everything, and rarely was able to articulate a clear policy on anything. From July 7th to the current date, there was *nothing* Republicans could do to stop any legislation from passing. Not a thing. Reid and Pelosi had enough votes (theoretically) to stop debate on everything if needed. It’s hard to call Republicans “obstructionists” if they don’t have the power to actually obstruct (which they would if they could). If Obama was unable to get his agenda into law from July 7th on, that’s on him. It was his lack of leadership that is to blame.
However, no one should really be surprised. He ran on his great speeches and talk of the future, without relying on his extremely thin record of actually getting things done. His first year of getting pretty much nothing done fits in line with his career. I also think it should finally be evident to everyone, that he is not “Change”, he’s not a “transcendent figure”, and he’s not really a “rockstar president”. He’s a smooth talking politician from Chicago, who injects politics into everything he does, from having an anti-woman speaker at his inauguration (Rick Warren) to ignoring gay rights, to even lying about the new Presidential dog. He’s plain old politics through and through.
