There are numerous posters in the DI Forum who ask repeatedly for a list of Obama’s achievements as president. What can a President do, or what can he take credit for when it is Congress that makes laws and a court system that interprets them? Though it will please no one--and it will certainly cause many to vilify this poster rather than seriously reflect on his thoughts--I offer these points and questions, with a warning that this is a lengthy post.

 

Advertisement

Points.

 

Obama has ordered that torture no longer be used on enemy combatants or those being held in US custody. I believe this a positive thing, though opponents will naturally cry that the US is going soft on terrorists. The US, however, has thrown these detainees or potential terrorists into a legal limbo, neither charging them with a crime nor letting them know why they are detained. The reason? Evidence against them is either too flimsy or too sensitive to be admitted in public. If there are terrorists in our custody, charge them, convict them, and send them to prison where they belong.

 

Congress passed and Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion dollar stimulus program. Argue whether we have the money or not, argue whether it has done anything tangible, there are ways to measure the bills’ effects. The Department of Transportation has approved 2,500 highway projects., though the pace can go slightly faster. Forbes magazine noted that the package included $79 billion to shore up state budgets, $164 billion in safety-net spending, and $32 billion in business tax cuts, all of which they claimed will be a stimulative. The jury is still out on this one, however.

 

Obama has made Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran higher priorities than Iraq. He replaced General David McKiernan with General Stanley McChrystal as the lead man on Afghanistan, which had little priority under the Bush administration. Obama has also increased the troop presence by 21,000, mirroring Bush’s surge in Iraq. Whether he will support McChrystal’s request for an additional 40,000 troops is difficult to know. Bush placed a great deal of priority on Iraq, though it had no reputable ties to Al qaeda, despite the misinformation produced by the Bush administration and supported by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Pakistan, with its clearly-established nuclear weapons, is a much greater threat, considering how instable it has become since the resignation of General Pervez Musharraf. Obama’s cabinet has worked with world leaders to bring in $5 billion in aid to Pakistan to help it fight its own terrorists. The Obama administration has also abandoned the long-standing Bush maneuver of ignoring Iran’s existence by actually engaging in talks over the nuclear issue. Iran is closer now than it has been in a decade to removing its nuclear material to Russia and France for processing than they have ever been under the Bush administration.

 

Obama also signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which resets the 180-day deadline to file a discrimination lawsuit. Lilly Ledbetter discovered that for years, she had received less pay than her male co-workers with the same job description. She sued, but the Supreme Court said that she had to file within 180 days of the original discrimination some several years before, even though she did not discover the discrimination until later.

 

President Obama actually engages with the world community. Many will say he merely runs around debasing the US by apologizing to the world, but do people think that the US has never made an error? Bush may not have been able to admit mistakes, but this president can, and it has been refreshingly embraced by much of the world, if not at home. What exactly did Bush achieve in 2002 by creating the term “Axis of Evil” and placing Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in it? The US ignored Iran and North Korea for the next seven years and invaded Iraq on the questionable evidence that even Colin Powell now admits was “not to be that solid.” Say what you wish, but world leaders of many free democracies feel a new sense of world commitment on the part of the US, versus the go-it-alone style from President Bush, as evidenced by his order for President Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq in March of 2003.

 

Questions.

 

It is more than a little unreasonable for people to complain about the lack of Obama achievements. What had President Bush achieved in his first months in office? President Lyndon B. Johnson had two incredible 100-day moments in his presidency, and that bar is unrealistically high for any president. Still, Obama might achieve more if the Republicans would not block his appointments to the 500 vacant positions in the Federal government. 250 have been filled; 250 remained unfilled in part thanks to senatorial blocks. Senator Jim DeMint has blocked Obama’s nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, Arturo Valenzuela, because DeMint disagrees with the Obama administrations reactions to the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Zelaya may have taken questionable actions in attempting to rewrite the Honduran constitution, but DeMint’s disagreeing with President Obama is not grounds to stop a nomination. Some may gripe about Obama’s overzealousness in using czar appointments, but that may be his only option to appointing people to do their jobs.

 

I do have qualms about a federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg who can order company executives to take pay cuts and reduce their bonuses. That flies in the face of Capitalism and free markets, but who can honestly believe that these men are worth $150 million dollar compensation packages? Wall Street executives and bank leaders contributed to an instable financial housing market bubble, aided by an insane belief that everyone should own a home. (Read Thomas Sowell’s article on home ownership.) Executives aren't worth that much money, so who is to say what is reasonable?

 

People have and will continue to attack Obama, and they have the perfect right to do so. They will claim he has achieved nothing, which makes him unworthy to be president, and in the same breath, they will claim he is trying to change everything, which makes him unworthy to be president. So is he the underachiever or the overachiever? It will not be a dull remaining three years, but I’ve no doubt it will not a civil period either.