What has Obama done so far?

[Vepres]

Here are my grades for him.

Foreign Policy, B+: Very good, especially when handling middle-eastern states. His first tour of Europe accomplished nothing, and was more of a publicity thing (which is fine, I wish he did more though).

Social, C+: I don't like him giving in to the military on don't ask don't tell. The fact that he picked a pro-racial quota judge is troubling as well. Stem cell research has been his only positive thing thus far that I am aware of.

Economic, D: The credit card law was fine I guess, but the stimulus was bloated and much of it wasn't stimulus but ideological projects and spending. His reluctance to accept a healthcare proposal without a public plan is disturbing as well. Not to mention the out of control spending and the potential for inflation. Not to mention that every time the issue is brought up he just says he'll tax those making more than $250,000. That's unfair, and won't bring in enough revenue.

Anyway, whether you agree with him or not, he's done a lot.

[aaaa2222]

Foreign Policy: A-
While Obama has done great things in the Middle East and with the Somali Pirate crisis, North Korea is still armed and deadly, and Afghanistan is still unstable, however, these two are not of the utmost concern at this time, but will need to be dealt with before the conclusion of his term.
Social Justice: F
Honestly, what happened to the campaign promises? No major Gay Rights legislation, DADT standing strong and barely a mention of the issue by our executive feels like betrayal, and is unacceptable.
Domestic Policy: B-
While I will say again that I am not a fan of big government, nor a fan of our record spending, this is one of the few times it is necessary. Like FDR, Obama is attempting to restore trust in the government and ensure the feeling of progress, the feeling that will get people out to begin purchasing products again in mass. I honestly am betraying my libertarian base by saying that I support bailouts of the large firms, if only because it both helps the business, and will fetch the government new income through interest in the future. TARP is a disaster, and it makes me angry just to talk about it, so I will not.
Overall: C+
Not yet what he was hyped up to be, but not a failure either, Obama still has potential to drive the country through the many trials confronting it, but he will have to work even harder.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Economy: D-

I would say "A for effort," but there was no effort. The stimulus was a complete and utter waste of money because it, 1. Wasn't large enough, 2. Wasn't targeted, & 3. Full of useless tax cuts. Obama and the Democrats also have no spine on other economic measures, like measures to stem foreclosures, and credit card reforms, one of which didn't pass, and another that didn't go nearly far enough. (An interest rate cap, hello?)

Bailouts are also a total waste of money, there is no third way here. You either nationalize, or kill, but don't put useless businesses on life support. We should have nationalized several banks and GM immediately, restructured the businesses on our own, and built the business from there. It would've been CHEAPER in the short term to nationalize them, and other countries have nationalized their banks to great effect in the past, yet again, Obama has no political guts to go there. He is personally pissing away any chance left-wing economics has at gaining any credibility, because he's trying to play it both ways and coast on what is quiet and easy, as opposed to forcing what is absolutely necessary. I'm really, really, disappointed.

Foreign Policy: A-

I really have no complaints here, other than I wish we got our of Iraq sooner, and wouldn't be wasting our time with Afghanistan. Again, this is nice and easy and gets Obama political points for something we shouldn't be wasting our time on. Otherwise though, he seems to be vastly improving our image in the world, and I suppose that's more important in the grand scheme of things.

Healthcare: C-

I'm happy he's intent on reform here, but he's not doing it right. He says he would support Single Payer if he was building a system from the ground up, but that we apparently can't do that. Why the hell not? That doesn't even make sense considering your campaign theme, change! If you're only intent on shuffling around the procedures and offering subsidies, and holding hands with the insurance companies in the naive hope they will lower costs on their own, then you're not offering real reform.

We need a serious public option on healthcare, and all Obama has said in that regard is basically "No, f**ck you, we can't do it." We have the best chance we've had in 60 years to institute real universal healthcare, and once again Obama is pissing away any chance we have of doing it properly and catching up to the rest of the first world.

"Defense:" B-

His flip flops on torture, and releasing the photos that he previously pledged to release, and even signed an executive order to release them, have lost a great deal of respect here. Once again he's not made any radical changes in this area. On torture he's essentially stating "We reserve the right to do it, but we won't, so it's all good." Both of these things just give him nice and pretty political points that do nothing to help the country.

His high score here from me comes from the fact that he's standing by his intention to close Guantanamo. I'm happy he hasn't backed away from that and he's actually saying common sense, that we can house them here, and should give them a fair and proper trial as best we can do that.

Gay Rights & Abortion: D

Abortion really doesn't affect this score much at all, but I'm just throwing this in here because I'm a little sick and tired of his "let's hold hands with evangelicals" attitude. We shouldn't be compromising on this issue at all if it hurts the existing right of a woman to choose.

As for gay rights, I'm disgusted with him. Not only does he most likely support gay marriage in private, that was okay for the campaign, but NOW it's not. He needs to find some way to do a clever switcharoo here, because the country is moving on this issue without him, and that's not "change" I voted for. Leaving aside marriage for the moment, and him once again being too politically spineless to take a position that might force him to fight for something, he's not even moving on civil unions, which he says he supports.

But DADT is what really bugs me. Obviously I have no interest in serving in the armed forces, but there are tens of thousands of soldiers that are gay, and thousands that have been thrown out because of their sexual orientation. Obama has repeatedly said he opposes this... yet does nothing about it! Sign an executive order stalling the implementation of the policy, tell congress to move on repealing it, make a speech, release a statement, do SOMETHING that shows us you're not just letting this issue coast along like on everything else you've done.

Overall: C-

Obama has repeatedly shown a lack of political will to take on tough issues, lack of willingness to fight for something he believes in, not moving the congress to repeal DADT despite opposing it, supporting half assed economic measures that are worse than doing nothing at all, allowing Republicans to trample over literally everything he proposes and trying to hold hands with people who are NEVER going to like him, and generally acting as if 2008 was a close election.

Newsflash. It wasn't. You won. Act like it. There's no need to play into the "Conservative enough?" game with everything you do. Fight for something.

[YRABNNRM]

Well, if you ask people around here, he's already locked up a landslide re-election win against the "likely" GOP contenders. Impressive!

You're not serious are you?  I hope there was some sarcasm in that statement.

Yes, I am serious that plenty of people think he'll absolutely demolish many of the "likely" GOP contenders.

That's because of the weakness of the potential GOP field rather than the strength of Obama, for me at least. Of course anything can happen.

Should he win re-election, I doubt it will be as big as last time.

That doesn't mean it's a guaranteed re-election win. Weak candidates can beat a weak President. I don't know if he'll be weak or not. Then again, I'm not the one posting arrogant predictions so far out (not saying you are either, for the record).

Oh yes, I'm well aware. One doesn't have to look back further than 1992 to see that.

I don't think his re-election is guaranteed; he's just the favorite right now (as any President a year after a large victory should be) but that can change very quickly. Obama himself realizes this and has said very frequently that he doesn't expect to be re-elected should the economy not recover.

[Mechaman]

Has taken our foreign policy from "let's bomb the f&$k out of everyone who disagrees with us" to "let's talk first", a very great achievement in my book.

Well since N. Korea has unilaterally disarmed, you're right.

North Korea wouldn't feel the need to arm in the first place if we didn't antagonize them every five f#*king minutes. Did that every cross your mind? What would you do if the president of a foreign power labeled your country as one of the "Axis of Evil"?
North Korea may have nukes, they may have a super large army, but I don't think they're near batty enough to possibly consider nuking the US. Hell, even China is telling them to chill. Something alot of you super duper prowar conservative do is presume that everybody besides us who have nukes are planning to ass rape us with said nukes. Okay wise guys, tell me why if having nukes suddenly makes someone super evil and deserving of invasion why we never attacked the Soviet Union when they developed their first nuclear weapon in 1949? Three words: Mutually Assured Destruction. The threat of the bomb is what kept either of the two superpowers from a direct all out confrontation. North Korea is just telling us they don't like it when overzealous superpowers feel like they can tell them what to do. North Korea doesn't want nuclear war, they just want us to back the hell off of them.

[CJK]

Has taken our foreign policy from "let's bomb the f&$k out of everyone who disagrees with us" to "let's talk first", a very great achievement in my book.

Well since N. Korea has unilaterally disarmed, you're right.

North Korea wouldn't feel the need to arm in the first place if we didn't antagonize them every five f#*king minutes. Did that every cross your mind? What would you do if the president of a foreign power labeled your country as one of the "Axis of Evil"?
North Korea may have nukes, they may have a super large army, but I don't think they're near batty enough to possibly consider nuking the US. Hell, even China is telling them to chill. Something alot of you super duper prowar conservative do is presume that everybody besides us who have nukes are planning to ass rape us with said nukes. Okay wise guys, tell me why if having nukes suddenly makes someone super evil and deserving of invasion why we never attacked the Soviet Union when they developed their first nuclear weapon in 1949? Three words: Mutually Assured Destruction. The threat of the bomb is what kept either of the two superpowers from a direct all out confrontation. North Korea is just telling us they don't like it when overzealous superpowers feel like they can tell them what to do. North Korea doesn't want nuclear war, they just want us to back the hell off of them.

So basically you're OK with them having nukes?

[Hash]

The only thing I really don't like about him is the "buy American clause" in the stimulus package.

Nonetheless, his stimulus remains miles better than the so-called Canadian "stimulus".

[Badger]

This is pretty much all you need to know:

That and the 09 projection is primarily due to the bottom falling out of the economy thanks to 8 years of short-sighted trickle-down economic policies plus an almost religious adversion to governemt regulation of markets like, say, banking. That and putting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 'on the books' for deficit calculations which the previous administration never did.

The following years appear to be trying to dig us out of the hole Bush tossed us in, which obviously isn't going to happen overnight.

[Badger]

B- or C+ from me.

As a liberal, I would have liked Obama to go farther in advancing a truly liberal agenda. But like any astute politician, whether his name is Clinton or Reagan, he understands the nature of a razor-thin majority in both houses and an electorate that is basically centrist.  Some would even say center-right.

On foreign policy and military matters, I think he has managed quite well.  But that could be because I am used to eight years of "mission accomplished" and "oceans won't protect us". With remarkable alacrity, he saw to the rescue of an American citizen and the swift dispatch of the Somali pirates holding him.  So much for the "Obama will bend over for black muslims" crowd.  Still, conservatives are not without substance when they point to hand-wringing and a lack of decisive action regarding North Korea.  Liberals would like to see the pullout from Iraq stepped up.  Some would even suggest withdrawal from Afghanistan.  But if that was the change they wanted, Obama should never have been their guy.  From day one, he made clear that Afghanistan and Pakistan would be the first front in the war on terror.

On domestic policy, I am less anxious about rampant spending than some...but I would be lying to say it does not give me pause.  As bad as the economy was, however, I doubt a President McCain would have spent less.  In fact, he might have spent the same but allocated the monies very differently. If forced to choose, I prefer the spending choices Obama has made to the ones McCain likely would have made.  (Either way though, the improvement from the previous knucklehead in chief would have been palpable.)

I am not sure any comment from someone on this forum gave me more comfort and hope than Torie's characterization of candidate Obama as "a serious man".  The President has done nothing to persuade me that Torie was wrong.  And while the jury is certainly still out regarding his success (Carter and Hoover were serious men, too), I am guardedly hopeful.

I do wish to affirm and echo Keystone Phil's remark.  There does tend to be a cockyness among Democrats here that was quite characteristic of Republicans until recently.  Yes, I grant, I am the party pessimist when it comes to our electoral chances...preferring to be pleasantly surprised as opposed to be crushed  (See the 2004 Kerry loss or the 1994 House elections!).  But still, we do ourselves no service at all by presuming victory.  Obama's supporters need to work as hard now (perhaps harder) as they did in the primary and the general. 

Concede nothing to the opposition.  But presume nothing on the part of our party, either.

I tend to agree with this analysis. My biggest disappointment so far with Obama has been his reluctance to issue an executive order suspending 'don't ask, don't tell', but as a typical naive liberal I'm willing to assume--for now--that that's on the President's agenda and it's a matter of timing when in his first term (please, Mr. President?) that he's willing to spend the political capital on it.