What Has President Obama Accomplished?

[JLI Jesse]

EXCERPTS OF THE PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

[michaelintp]

To understand the underlying economics that President Obama (in the State of the Union) and Gov. Bob McDonnell (in the Republican response) are addressing, the electorate needs to closely study the following:

"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk

[michaelintp]

As with most State of the Union addresses, made by both Democrats and Republicans, a lot of platitudes and vague references to policy.  A few specifics were given, but these speeches often bear little resemblance to what really happens after the fact.  For example, I can't imagine we'll see a flurry of nuclear power plant building and offshore oil drilling, notwithstanding the President's words.

If the President is correct that the problem is that many ordinary citizens do not trust "the Government" and the politicians who currently run it, then his speech will have done little to eliminate that mistrust.  Because ...

Reaction is 80% a function of the listener.  Those who are sceptical or inclined not to believe the President will hear his words through that filter.  Those who trust him and support his agenda will hear his words in a favorable light.

Same goes for the Republican response.

Yawn.

[Curtis Metcalf]

Reaction is 80% a function of the listener.  Those who are sceptical or inclined not to believe the President will hear his words through that filter.  Those who trust him and support his agenda will hear his words in a favorable light.

Same goes for the Republican response.

Yawn.

For once, I agree completely with Mike. 

[JLI Jesse]

State of the Union Fact Check

[michaelintp]

State of the Union Fact Check

Hmmm ... that's what I thought.  If this sort of critique gets a lot of play, doesn't bode well for fostering credibility with the "middle."

[Hypestyle]

there was a Presidential town hall meeting in Nausha, new hampshire, today, and the President answered some questions from the audience.. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/02/02/obama.nh.townhall.education.cnn?iref=allsearch

[Daoud]

Apparently more than any president since Congressional Quarterly has been keeping score!

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003276768

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122436116

'The previous high scores were held by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, with 93 percent, and Dwight Eisenhower, who scored 89 percent in 1953. Cranford notes that George W. Bush's score hit the high 80s in 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But Obama surpassed them all, Cranford says.'

Maddow said it best...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGgd-3Z1HOU

f*ck the Haters!
(But Barack's going to help 99% of their stupid asses also.)

Words can't express my pleasure every time I glimpse a view or hear Barack "Our President of Our Country" Obama speak!

Best. President. Ever.


Excelsior!

Daoud

[MKG]

Oh, how the mighty has fallen. I mean how Jesus has fallen. Americans better find someone else to pray to, cause Jesus Obama is high on ego and aging.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Whooo, black folks can't stand human leaders.  You mean, he didn't make everything all better? You mean, this is going to take a long time and compromise?  Then you are an EPIC FAIL. 

Black folks are so disconnected from power we have no idea how it works or how to have realistic expectations.

[Vic Vega]

Whooo, black folks can't stand human leaders.  You mean, he didn't make everything all better? You mean, this is going to take a long time and compromise?  Then you are an EPIC FAIL. 

Black folks are so disconnected from power we have no idea how it works or how to have realistic expectations.

Its not just Blacks.

Look at Progressives and the Heath Care issue. It is as if they are all stunned to have realized the multi-billion dollar Health Insurance industry that employs hundreds of thousands was just going to bend over for a public option.

And those are supposedly educated folks.

[stanleyballard]

In all honesty it is not fair to give him one year to be the best or the worst President.....America has taken decades to get to our current position of lackluster behavior (politically, socially and financially)...and no one can undo all of the damage in 365 days.  No one - even if we had a revolution the changes will take time.  Within 4 years you will see exactly what Obama is made of - a clear picture will come out of his actions.

[Vic Vega]

US stimulus added up to 2.1 mln jobs in Q4 2009-CBO

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The massive stimulus package passed last year to blunt the impact of the worst U.S. recession in 70 years created up to 2.1 million jobs in the last three months of 2009, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

The package boosted the economy by up to 3.5 percent and lowered the unemployment rate by up to 2.1 percent during that period, CBO said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2311303720100223

[Battle]

Signing of  Education Reconciliation Act

The Pen Is Mightier Than Th' Sword

WASHINGTON, DC - Earlier this week, the president signed into law, The Education Reconciliation Act, no longer requiring banks to lend money for student loans in college and increased funding for The Pell Grants.


Official transcript:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-and-dr-jill-biden-signing-health-care-and-education-reconciliatio

[Reginald Hudlin]

Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer

Before he'd been in office one year President Obama lost the support 
of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of 
the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of  life and 
ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight,  57-year-
old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer   
and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) 
this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. 
Why? Because he's shown he will succeed by slow, calm and steady...staying the course.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of 
him as a great, good and uniquely qualified leader.

Obama's loyal supporters will be proven right.  Obama's critics 
will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged 
at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency:

Not since the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second 
World War and the Depression has any president faced more 
adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more   
bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial 
integration has any president faced a more consistently short-
sighted and willfully ignorant opposition -- from both the right 
and left.

As the President's poll numbers have fallen so has his support from 
some on the left who hailed him as a Messiah not long ago; 
those lefty web sites and commentators that were falling over
themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 
2008  election.

The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling  "prophecy"-- 
snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and 
then pretend you didn't have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was 
his fault:

# An ideologically divided country, to the point America is really two countries

# Two wars; one mishandled from the start, the other unnecessary and  immoral

# The worst economic crisis since the depression

#  America's standing in the world at its lowest point in history

# A country misled into accepting the use of torture on prisoners of war

# A health care system in free fall

# An educational system in free fall

# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions 
(about which the Bush/Cheney administration and Republicans had done 
nothing)

# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left

# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally 
irresponsible Bush administration.

And these were just some of the problems left for Obama to deal with
when he came into office!

"Help"  from the Right?

What did Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and 
half-baked conspiracy theorists (what Republicans 
were reduced to by the time Obama took office) do to "help" our 
new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed he   
wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate, 
wasn't born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist", 
was a secret communist, was the Anti-Christ, was the reincarnation
of Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the elderly!

They called for his assassination through the not-so-
subtle use of signs held up at rallies and even a bumper 
sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound 
off against imagined insults and government in general. They 
gathered to howl at the moon.  They were led by insurance industry 
lobbyists and deranged (but well-financed) "commentators" from 
Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

Utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with 
utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who 
was trying to improve conditions for the poor, the environment, to
diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs
to help women and to care for the sick! But in Congress the Republican leadership knew only one word: "No!"

In other words the reactionary white, uneducated, crazy far
right, combined with educated neoconservative war mongers, religious
right big business shills, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bugs,
gun-toting crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons
and evangelical  gay-hating flakes...they all found one thing to agree on
and rally around: their desire to stop a Black man from succeeding
at all costs!

"Help" from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of 
them blasted the President because they disagreed with the bad 
choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan. 
Choices he'd inherited from the worst president in U.S. history!

Others stood up to proclaim the President's economic policies
"failed" before the President even instituted them! Others said
since not all gay rights battles had not been won, they'd been
"betrayed"! (Never mind Obama's support of the gay community is
stronger than any American President in history. 
Never mind that he signed new laws against hate crimes!)

Those who stood weeping with beatific emotion on election night 2008
turned into an angry mob, declaring their "disappointment" the world
didn't change the moment Obama took the oath of office! 

And the legion of young new voters was too busy texting to pay 
attention to how the media was making President Obama look like
Hitler or Evil incarnate.

The President's critics, left and right, had one thing in common: 
impatience laced with no sense of history (let alone reality).
Then of course there were the snide, white, know-it-all commentators
and talking heads who just can't imagine that maybe, just maybe they
aren't as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart
as a Black President. He hadn't consulted them so he must be wrong!

The ideological ideas of Obama critics' defined their idea of reality 
rather than reality defining their ideas. Meanwhile back in the reality-
based community -  in just 12 short months -- President Obama scored
victories that went unreported on the evening news:

#Continued to wind down the misbegotten war in Iraq (But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices 
regarding the war in Afghanistan (But that wasn't  good enough for his critics)

#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Restored America's image around the globe (But that  wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Banned torture of American prisoners (But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of the American economy (But that wasn't  good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn't good enough for his  critics)

#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort 
to halt global warming (But that wasn't good  enough for his critics)

#Stood up for educational reform (No, that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Won a Nobel Peace Prize (Not even that was good enough for his critics, who lambasted him for the honor)

#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial 
system of checks and balances (But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Did what he'd promised to do to start the slow, torturous and almost 
impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had 
failed to even touch (But that wasn't good enough for his critics)

#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good 
humor and patience (not good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of job losses (Not even that was good enough for his  critics)

#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed, 
dangerous far right opposition that included people who showed up at
public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of tyrants" needing to "water the tree of liberty". (That got no praise from his critics)

#Showed that he could not only make tough military choices but 
explain and defend them brilliantly (Not even that was good enough for his critics)

Are these what you would call "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR! I think not.

Who has actually failed are Americans who can't see the beginning of a miracle, right under their noses. Who failed are the ideologues of the
left and right who began hoping this President would fail so they could  be proven correct in their dire and morbid predictions.
Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles who have turned "news" into more stupid entertainment for an  entertainment-besotted, gossip crazed society.

But here's the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the 
help of his "supporters" on the left and despite his hate-filled Republican  detractors on the right!

The Future Looks  Good

After Obama has served two full terms (and he will),  after his 
wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on 
all fronts -- with a uncanny and calculating eye to achieving success    (and he will), after the economy is booming and new industries 
are burgeoning (and they will), after the naysayers are proved 
wrong: let the record show that not all Americans panicked and jumped
ship at the first sign of a storm.

Just because we didn't get everything we wanted in the health care
bill, and his first year in office...not all of us are giving up! Some of 
us are staying the course. And we will be proved right.

PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president, 
please pass this on and hang in there!  Pass it on anyway to ensure 
that his "report card" gets the attention it deserves.