OBAMA: THE FIRST 365 DAYS

This is my second official post about politics. I think it’s important for me to express my feelings on Obamas first year. Even though I consider myself a moderate Democrat, my allegiance will always be as US Citizen first. I was one of the 69 million + Americans who voted for Barack Obama in November, 2008. My vote was decided very early on in the process before McCain even emerged as the Republican and certainly well before his ill-advised selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate. Hek, my vote was decided before Obama even became the Democrats choice.

My early perceptions led me to vote for him for what I classify as minor reasons and major reasons. Before I can evaluate his performance, I must first measure them against my own expectations. The minor reasons for my vote began with Obama being the youngest major candidate for office in 2008. That spoke to my generation and led me to believe that a youthful vigor was imperative to the rigors of the office. I also voted for him because he was an African American. I felt in order for our world to change, our perceptions on how we see the world should change. I also voted for him because he came from a modest upbringing and was the least wealthiest candidate running for office. He talked about things that no other candidates could relate too like owning 1 home, saving for college and paying school loans.

My major motives for casting my vote were his dissention for the Iraqi war and his intention to bring the troops home safely. I also believed in his economic plan to get the economy back on the feet. I liked his plans to reform healthcare and I believed he would use his popularity to restore our diplomacy across the world. Those were the biggest issues for me but his ideas in education reform, nuclear proliferation and energy initiatives were also the icing on the cake.

It’s been 365 days since his inauguration and I’ll start where most of these kind of blogs end. I give the President a C- after year one. The bad news is that it was absolutely impossible for him to match the euphoria of his campaign. The excitement and promises were so extreme that his actual presidency seems anti-climatic.

Let’s review the highlights and lowlights:

FIRST DAYS

All were highlights. He spent his first week overturning George Bushes executive orders. These include fair pay for women, extending healthcare for young children, closing GITMO (thus barring interrogation efforts) and nominating a Latina women to the US Supreme Court. He has also mastered technology better than any other president. Conferences are on you tube.

VETTING

HIGHLIGHT:

In a show of bipartisanship, Obama offers a major cabinet role to Republican Senator Judd Gregg.

LOWLIGHT:

Gregg, who shows lukewarm interest at first turns down the offer as the Republicans learn to spit in Obama’s face. The situation gets worse as several cabinet nominees rescind their offers when news surfaces that they have tax problem. The irony is these positions were for positions directly associated with our national economy. It made me feel that this president is not choosing the right people to lead his cabinet. This continues to be an issue as Tim Geitner, our US Treasury Secretary has been more aggressive about defending his record then about defending his results. He was billed as the savior to our economic woes. He is quickly becoming a caricature of our woes.

THE ECONOMY

LOWLIGHT:

Banks, Housing, Cars, Jobs, Credit Cards. Oh My!! Everyone wants a bailout. After owing more than 2 trillion dollars to China, Obama maxes out with nearly 800 billion dollar TARP (Troubled asset Relief Program) to help stimulate the economy. Apparently the benefactors are using there allocations for handsome bonuses and fancy company retreats. These greedy CEO’s are addicted to money and Obama is an enabler. Its like loaning your best friend $100 so he can snort coke and when you ask for the money back, your coked up friend says I need more money to snort more coke.

HIGHLIGHT:

Many experts believe that the recession is ending. Whether its due to the cyclical forces of the market or to Obama’s TARP is yet to be seen but credit should go to Obama since he is the man in office. Housing is slowly recovering, the stock market has rebounded and people got lots of cash for their clunker cars. In my opinion, job growth will NEVER recover and anyone who was prepared to retire this year now has to work at least another 5 years to recoup those lost funds. Metaphorically speaking, it’s like a fire that destroys your home. We made it out alive but it will take time to rebuild.

DIPLOMACY

HIGHLIGHT:

He won a Nobel Peace Prize. People were outraged because we are in two wars right now. But let’s keep that he voted against the wars as a US Senator, so he doesn’t get my blame for “starting the war.” I can see how bad this may still look though. It’s like Miss America punching another gal in the face and getting the congeniality award. I think this was an award based on hope as opposed to achievement. In his first year of office, Obama has travelled more than any other president before him. Many of these trips dealt with energy summits and economic forums but make no doubt it about it, these trips are designed to repair our global image. It took us 8 years to ruin our image and it may take a few years to regain the respect ad admiration that we enjoyed up until 2000.

LOWLIGHT

More troop deployment to Afghanistan. The president was stuck between a rock and a hard plate. He campaigned for troops to return home. Instead he is resurging and redistributing them to more violent countries. I can’t say I disagree with his reasoning but acknowledging a specific date for withdraw was a bonehead move. All it does is tell the enemy when it’s ok to strike again.

HEALTHCARE

HIGHLIGHT:

Was destined to be the first president since Lyndon Johnson (1965) to pass a major piece of health reform. Without going into great detail, I was not personally in favor of all the components of the bill but I will say that it is absolutely imperative to fixing our nations biggest cause of debt. It also ensures equal health for everyone (i.e. no more pre-exiting health disqualifiers).

LOWLIGHT:

Remember those days when you were in college and you spent all night working on a major research paper. Then there was an electrical storm and all the computers in the library were blown out. Then 10 minutes later the computers go back on and you realize that the auto recovery didn’t save your work thus your entire paper is completely gone? Now imagine you are president Obama and your metaphorical research paper is called “Healthcare Reform.” This is something that you’ve been working on for not just 1 night but for 365 nights. Then an electrical storm comes to strike. That electrical storm is some playgirl state senator named Scott Brown. He has just erased your entire people and you did not autosave it. What a nightmare!!

For every Samoan pirate that Obama had killed by the Navy Seals, for every beer summit and every feel good story about humanity, dignity and hope, we put Obama’s first year of presidency head-to-head with one major issue, Healthcare. I agree that healthcare is a magnanimous issue in our country but by having primetime specials, special news conferences and 1 year’s worth of discussion about this topic, it would not be an understatement that a failure to complete this bill would be a colossal blackeye for his administration. Some will argue that this is exactly what will happen because this new Senator from Massachusetts would cast the 41^st vote against this bill.

My view is that it’s terrible that 1 man (Scott Brown of Massachusetts) prevents 47 million men from receiving healthcare but the reality is this bill took to long to write, explain and comprehend for legislators and public alike. If this bill were as great as its being presented, 1-2 Republicans would have voted for it thus not relying on a liberal state to come through for you and discussion of filibuster is irrelevant. I recognize that Massachusetts is essentially spitting on the grave of Edward Kennedy right now but it shouldn’t have come to this point.

My grade of C- is a gracious one. I was leaning closer to a D+ but if Obama finds a way to sign this piece of legislation even with 59 Senators supporting it then I may increase his grade to an A-. That’s how tragic this piece of legislation is to his lst year’s presidential achievement.

Let me say one other thing. Its is nice to have a guy in office who even in defeat never appears to get rattled or lose control. You get the impression that he actually cares about what he is doing. You may agree or disagree with his policies but you must admire his cerebral approach. He appears to rely on a programmatism as opposed to gut decisions. To me it is evident that he has accomplished more in his first year then Bush did in his 8 years. He still has a long way to go to exceed our expectations but I think he is off to a relatively good start.