President Barack Obama: Success or Fail?

[wolfsblood07]

To hear my favorite radio guy tell it, President Obama has failed miserably in his nearly 7 years in office.  Rush Limbaugh spends the greater part of 3 hours each weekday criticizing Obama, explaining that his policies don't work and how he has racked up a mountain of debt, weakened the nation and destroyed the economy.  And how he has exploited the global warming hoax to increase the power of government over our lives. 
But if we look at it the other way, hasn't every president since WWII racked up more debt than all of his predecessors combined?  Would it be any different if, say, Jeb Bush is elected?  The beast of big government isn't going anywhere as long as the House and Senate have a say, and the American people will never demand the big cuts in spending that would be necessary to put a dent in it. Even Reagan couldn't do much to change it.
Plus Obama took out Osama bin Laden.  Had that happened under Bush, would not Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have said it took a strong, patriotic pro military president to accomplish that?
So is Obama a success or a failure at this point?

[Mr. Reactionary]

I'd say he's been pretty successful at getting what he wanted. He's provided a lot of patronage to the disparate interest groups who make up his coalition. As a community organizer I feel like he'd view that as successful given the fact that the only other branch of government he gets consistent support from is the Federal Appeals Court Circuits (which is because he transformed them too). Consider the stereotypical identity groups which make up his coalition and the red meat/ideological wins they can claim.

Young women: Lily Ledbetter, repeal of Mexico City Policy, birth control w/o a co-pay, Preponderance standard on campus for sexual assault

Greens: The CPP (including Cap and Trade), major Ozone and Mercury regs, new CAFE standards, no keystone, no arctic drilling, no Yucca Mountain, mortally wounding coal, repeal of stream buffer rule, expedited loans to Solyndra, cash for clunkers

LGBT: DADT repeal, DOMA dead, gay marriage in all 50 States, the DoEd now considering segregating Trans students a civil rights violation, employment protection for federal contractors, Medicare now able to fund gender reassignment surgery

Black people: Mandatory racial reporting of neighborhood demographics, Pigford settlement, CFPB disparate impact settlements from banks to fund slush funds like My Brother's Keeper, new rules for low income loans, spends time demagoguing about Henry Louis Gates and parade floats in Nebraska and how he looks a little bit like Trayvon Martin, .

Hispanic people: He tried DACA

Reds/Pinks: Obamacare has destabilized the healthcare market making single payer more likely, Dodd Frank has effectively nationalized the banks through too big to fail, Net Neutrality has effectively nationalized ISPs, nationalized the federal loan program, increased income and estate taxes, Americorps expansion

Unions: NLRB decision on franchises, NLRB decision on workplace postings, Contract Labor Agreement EO, overtime threshold increase

Doves: Killed missile shield in Eastern Europe, pulled everyone out of Iraq and Yemen, Russia and Iran nuclear agreements, Cuba relations

Statists: No transfats, no smoking in public housing, FDA regulation of tobacco, Mandatory calorie counts on restaurant menus and vending machines, Michelle school lunch overhaul, preventing veterans with an appointed fiduciary from owning guns,  Fast and Furious

Given the hands he was dealt, Obama has managed to successfully use the bureaucracy to circumvent Congress and get patronage for his party.

[Abraham Reagan]

 Barack Obama has been a failure

. His signature health care law is a disaster. It raised premiums for millions of Americans and canceled plans for millions of people. Not to mention the perverse incentives included in it, which actually encourage higher cost.

. His stimulus was a failure and produced nowhere near the result it was supposed to, and now he just argues we should've spent more. Now, more small businesses are closing than opening and the labor force participation is 6 million people less than 2000 despite a 30 million person population increase.

. His foreign policy is downright naive, whether it's the Iran Deal, the reset with Russia, withdrawing all troops from Iraq, or ignoring the ISIS threat until it had grown and spread.

. He has not lived up to any expectations on his "post-partisan president" claim. He never skips an opportunity to blame Republicans. A recent example: In the wake of the Paris attacks, he gets more riled up at Republican governors than the terrorists.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

He has been extremely mediocre, which automatically makes him one of the best presidents of all time.

[Blue3]

He's been an incredibly successful president.

Especially comparing where the U.S. is today to where it was when he first took office, with Bush's mess.

I just wish he could have gotten more legislation through when the Dems had a supermajority, and that he had a better plan from the beginning on Syria.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I agree with that. Look at your average G20 meeting and you'll see why Obama looks good in comparison. There have only been a handful of other contemporary world leaders that in any way live up to Obama since he came to power. When I think of left-leaning figures, no other contemporary leader comes close in terms of gravitas (the last figure being Mandela)/Lula and Singh were good, but their governments became too corrupt to manage. Mujica was fun, but Uruguay is too titchy.

[DavidB.]

Why do people keep presenting gay marriage as Obama's achievement? He didn't even support it in 2008, and SCOTUS eventually legalized it.

[Mercenary]

Neither.

[Maxwell]

He has been extremely mediocre, which automatically makes him one of the best presidents of all time.

[Young Conservative]

Success at his goals, failure at helping America prosper. Socialistic ideals do not help the common man. Yes, I said It

[Mr. Smith]

He has been extremely mediocre, which automatically makes him one of the best presidents of all time a success in this polarized era.

[ScottieF]

Almost certainly a top ten president at this point, which says as much about how poor most presidents are as it does about the job he's done. He's largely failed the hopey-changey/ending gridlock premise of his '08 campaign, and he probably should have been more aggressive in dealing with Wall Street when he got into office, but when you look at his record it's pretty clear he'll go down as a towering figure in the history of American progressivism. The ACA, Dodd-Frank, saving the economy from the brink of collapse, gay marriage, first president to take action on climate change, Don't Ask/Don't Tell Repeal, etc. Foreign policy will have to wait for the judgment of time.

[NeverAgain]

Success at his goals, failure at helping America prosper. Socialistic ideals do not help the common man. Yes, I said It

You mean the common (wo)man that is getting screwed over by corporate bailouts, unfair healthcare, and a minimum wage so low they are competing with current gas prices. I am not a socialist, I do not want to live in a purely socialist country. I do believe though that programs that you term as "socialism" will help Americans and prosperity. I will say that the previous president was not too keen on making America prosper, in fact it seems he was almost trying to screw it up. Obama is not my favorite president, nor is he close, but he is better than all of the candidates running on the Republican side combined.