What do you think of Obama ?

[seafoid]

8 years on from hope and change. He could never be as transformational as the media portrayal. What do you think of his 8 years ?

[From the Bunker]

8 years on from hope and change. He could never be as transformational as the media portrayal. What do you think of his 8 years ?

He was portrayed as a radical type character. Big business America would never allow such a character get the highest office. America needed a President with an up beat message after Bush jr. Obama on appearance made America look less aggressive.

[laoislad]

Offaly bastard.

[J70]

Decent job in very difficult circumstances.

However, as with all presidents, time and hindsight will tell the true story of how he did and the implications of his policies, both domestically and abroad.

[whitey]

Inherited an impossible situation

Did the best he could, but Abraham Lincoln himself couldn't have healed the wounds caused by Bush

[BennyCake]

A puppet. Just like the rest.

[J70]

The "transformational" thing is interesting. How many transformational presidents have there been, in terms of actual policy and changes to society? In the last 100 years, maybe FDR, LBJ and Reagan. Teddy Roosevelt if you back a little further. FDR the giant among them in terms of influence.

[seafoid]

FDR saved the system from itself . He set up Glass Steagal and Soc Sec but he had to cos the political pressure from below scared the shit out of capital.  . Obama is naturally cautious. If not worse. Gitmo is still open. Libya.
Maybe he felt the timing wasn't right or the political moment hadn't arrived for change. He never pushed back enough on Wall St to make the system safe or on Netanyahu to save Israel. Fairly disappointing. Maybe the next president will be transformational. The pressure from below is building up.

[screenexile]

Jesus wait until stew arrives 

[magpie seanie]

Obama has been easily the best US President of my lifetime. The chaos he inherited has been stabilised. He ended wars, got Bin Laden, steadied the economy and introduced universal healthcare. All this in the face of the gross ignorance and obstructionism of what the GOP descended into. There are disappointing aspect, several outlined here but all of those would be the case with anyone else and probably worse.

The next President will be crap (unless it's Bernie which sadly is unlikely).

[muppet]

Pope Francis has recently moved ahead of him as the world's most popular leader. Outside of the US he is very well regarded. Only Bill would rival him in that regard of the last few Presidents.

Obama is a top class orator, but didn't really succeed at home in a country where half of the people refuse to be ruled unless their man wins. The bilateral crap means one side always wants to raise taxes and increase spending/provide better services, while the other always wants to lower taxes and cut spending/scrap services. But the crazy political reality means that they ended up constantly increasing spending without raising taxes.

This has lead to borrowing at an unbelievable rate and a truly terrifying mountain of debt, on top of the mountain that Bush had already left behind. When this debt bubble inevitably pops the GOP & Dems will blame each other, but they are both to blame. However, Obama will have to shoulder his share of the blame.

In this regard his fans can reasonably say he was streets ahead of Bush, but Bill had managed to balance the books despite the GOP/Dem nonsense, so he is way behind Clinton. Obama's legacy will have been to leave the finances in an even worse state than his predecessor. Despite his foreign policy successes with Bin Laden, forcing Iran & Cuba into deals, shafting Putin's economy, not pandering to Netanyahu, he will probably ultimately be judged on the crisis yet to happen.

But in the strictly bilateral cocoon which the US abides, the alternatives Romney to him was McCain. If the latter had won the finances would probably have been worse, without most if any of the foreign policy successes. There would probably have been greater US involvement in the various wars. So in that regard, he was a Godsend. (I have to admit I have no idea what Romney would have been like).

[J70]

On the spending... What SHOULD Obama have done when he took over with the economy in a tailspin?

[seafoid]

On the spending... What SHOULD Obama have done when he took over with the economy in a tailspin?

Taxed the f**k.out.of the 0.1%

[Eamonnca1]

History will record him as a great president. The right will look at him and see the complete opposite of everything he actually did, because the right has abandoned reality-based politics and their inherent racism meant they were never ready for a black president.

[seafoid]

Pope Francis has recently moved ahead of him as the world's most popular leader. Outside of the US he is very well regarded. Only Bill would rival him in that regard of the last few Presidents.

Obama is a top class orator, but didn't really succeed at home in a country where half of the people refuse to be ruled unless their man wins. The bilateral crap means one side always wants to raise taxes and increase spending/provide better services, while the other always wants to lower taxes and cut spending/scrap services. But the crazy political reality means that they ended up constantly increasing spending without raising taxes.

This has lead to borrowing at an unbelievable rate and a truly terrifying mountain of debt, on top of the mountain that Bush had already left behind. When this debt bubble inevitably pops the GOP & Dems will blame each other, but they are both to blame. However, Obama will have to shoulder his share of the blame.

In this regard his fans can reasonably say he was streets ahead of Bush, but Bill had managed to balance the books despite the GOP/Dem nonsense, so he is way behind Clinton. Obama's legacy will have been to leave the finances in an even worse state than his predecessor. Despite his foreign policy successes with Bin Laden, forcing Iran & Cuba into deals, shafting Putin's economy, not pandering to Netanyahu, he will probably ultimately be judged on the crisis yet to happen.

But in the strictly bilateral cocoon which the US abides, the alternatives Romney to him was McCain. If the latter had won the finances would probably have been worse, without most if any of the foreign policy successes. There would probably have been greater US involvement in the various wars. So in that regard, he was a Godsend. (I have to admit I have no idea what Romney would have been like).

Clinton broke up Glass Steagal even if he did reduce the deficit. History will not be kind to him. All the left of centre pols of the late 90s like Clinton, Blair, Schroeder even Bertie say ran the same programme. Redistribution of short term profits of neoliberal speculation. The model crashed in 2008.