My thoughts on Obama's 1st year
With his term almost 25% complete, I've decided it's time for some reflection on our President. Since terrorism has again bubbled to the top of the news in recent weeks, I'll start there. Many people were concerned that Obama would be soft on terrorism, that he could not take the fight to the enemy as well as John McCain, that he couldn't spew bellicose rhetoric as well as Dick Cheney.
In the first 11 months of his presidency, Obama has launched more successful missile attacks against al Quaeda targets (primarily in Pakistan) than Bush/Cheney did in the previous four years. On Christmas day, Obama authorized a combined jet and missile strike in Yemen, that successfully prevented a terrorist attack on our embassy there. These are aggressive, successful attacks in two countries that Bush and Cheney basically ignored. Obama has authorized a total of an additional 50,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan. He's also getting us out of Iraq, as he promised. It has now been conclusively proven by two different bi-partisan investigations that Iraq had no link to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, the idiot who tried to blow up a plane last week should never have been allowed to board one in the first place. The US government had been warned about this guy, and the buck stops with Obama. Unlike his predecessor though, consider Obama's response. He admitted that "mistakes had been made" and he accepted responsibility for investigating and correcting them. This was a major failure in a security "system" that us frequent fliers know is terribly flawed. Really, it was probably multiple failures that allowed the guy to board the flight. Two members of his administration (DHS Secretary Napolitano and Press Secretary Gibbs) then got on TV and said "the system worked." They should be placed in stocks over the next few weeks at the nation's busiest airports where the traveling public can throw stale fruitcake at them.
Health Care reform continues to be a soap opera. The Republicans have openly admitted that they want to defeat it simply because doing so will hurt Obama's credibility. As a result, no Republican can be trusted when they criticize the legislation. The Democrats have done a terrible job of crafting the legislation anyway though. The core components of the original plan have been removed, and the math used to determine how we'll pay for the reforms and how much they'll save us in the long-run is entirely shady. Worst of all, we're not done yet. The Senate and House still need to create a conference bill. Joy.
While the economic stimulus did not deliver the instant relief that many Americans needed and hoped for, economists around the world agree that quick, bold action by US and European governments stopped this recession from becoming a depression, and did so quickly. Cash for clunkers sent tons of business to car dealerships and helped the industry as a whole. It reduced our dependence on foreign oil and helped the environment along the way. Even by the most pessimistic estimates, the stimulus has created one million jobs, and the real number may be over two million. The homebuyer tax credits kept my wife and a lot of other Realtors in business this year. Oh yeah, they also helped a lot of people buy homes, which is where most Americans have the majority of their wealth.
The Recovery.gov website is a dramatic step forward in government transparency, allowing people to track exactly how our tax dollars are spent in the stimulus monies. One of the campaign promises that Obama kept is the creation of a national declassification center. Dick Cheney seemed to think that even the paper towels he used to dry his hands should be classified indefinitely. I disagree.
PolitiFact is a website that is tracking how Obama is doing relative to over 500 campaign promises that he made. I looked at only the ones that are "resolved" at this point, meaning they have been assigned a final disposition. Around one fifth of his promises have been assigned a final disposition, a sample size of 110, which is more than enough to extrapolate statistical trends with a high degree of confidence (assuming that the remaining 390+ have similar characteristics to these first 110). So far, this President has kept 72% of his promises, compromised on 20%, and broken 8%. I'll take that kind of record.
In the first 11 months of his presidency, Obama has launched more successful missile attacks against al Quaeda targets (primarily in Pakistan) than Bush/Cheney did in the previous four years. On Christmas day, Obama authorized a combined jet and missile strike in Yemen, that successfully prevented a terrorist attack on our embassy there. These are aggressive, successful attacks in two countries that Bush and Cheney basically ignored. Obama has authorized a total of an additional 50,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan. He's also getting us out of Iraq, as he promised. It has now been conclusively proven by two different bi-partisan investigations that Iraq had no link to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, the idiot who tried to blow up a plane last week should never have been allowed to board one in the first place. The US government had been warned about this guy, and the buck stops with Obama. Unlike his predecessor though, consider Obama's response. He admitted that "mistakes had been made" and he accepted responsibility for investigating and correcting them. This was a major failure in a security "system" that us frequent fliers know is terribly flawed. Really, it was probably multiple failures that allowed the guy to board the flight. Two members of his administration (DHS Secretary Napolitano and Press Secretary Gibbs) then got on TV and said "the system worked." They should be placed in stocks over the next few weeks at the nation's busiest airports where the traveling public can throw stale fruitcake at them.
Health Care reform continues to be a soap opera. The Republicans have openly admitted that they want to defeat it simply because doing so will hurt Obama's credibility. As a result, no Republican can be trusted when they criticize the legislation. The Democrats have done a terrible job of crafting the legislation anyway though. The core components of the original plan have been removed, and the math used to determine how we'll pay for the reforms and how much they'll save us in the long-run is entirely shady. Worst of all, we're not done yet. The Senate and House still need to create a conference bill. Joy.
While the economic stimulus did not deliver the instant relief that many Americans needed and hoped for, economists around the world agree that quick, bold action by US and European governments stopped this recession from becoming a depression, and did so quickly. Cash for clunkers sent tons of business to car dealerships and helped the industry as a whole. It reduced our dependence on foreign oil and helped the environment along the way. Even by the most pessimistic estimates, the stimulus has created one million jobs, and the real number may be over two million. The homebuyer tax credits kept my wife and a lot of other Realtors in business this year. Oh yeah, they also helped a lot of people buy homes, which is where most Americans have the majority of their wealth.
The Recovery.gov website is a dramatic step forward in government transparency, allowing people to track exactly how our tax dollars are spent in the stimulus monies. One of the campaign promises that Obama kept is the creation of a national declassification center. Dick Cheney seemed to think that even the paper towels he used to dry his hands should be classified indefinitely. I disagree.
PolitiFact is a website that is tracking how Obama is doing relative to over 500 campaign promises that he made. I looked at only the ones that are "resolved" at this point, meaning they have been assigned a final disposition. Around one fifth of his promises have been assigned a final disposition, a sample size of 110, which is more than enough to extrapolate statistical trends with a high degree of confidence (assuming that the remaining 390+ have similar characteristics to these first 110). So far, this President has kept 72% of his promises, compromised on 20%, and broken 8%. I'll take that kind of record.
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