Olympic Failure

  Cartoon by Michael Ramirez  

Point to ponder:  Can you think of anything positive Obama has actually accomplished in the last nine months?

Comments

[proof]

Anything positive? Well, he did have beers at the White House to make amends for calling the police stupid!

[Joe Steel]

Are you kidding?

The recession is over. We're on the verge of at least some kind of health care reform. World opinion of the US is rising.

Considering the disaster Obama inherited, that's a pretty good record.

[Gina Cobb]

1. "The recession is over."

10/2/09 S.F. Chronicle: "No good news today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September and 263,000 more jobs vanished last month. The report contains no sign that the supposed improvement in the economy is helping the job market.

"One analysis notes that the only reason the jobless rate didn't go higher is that more than half a million American dropped out of the labor force in disgust."

What is your standard for whether the recession is "over"? Is it objectively verifiable? Have you always applied the same standard whether a Republican or Democrat is in the White House?

Obama was one of the Senators who blocked reform of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that Bush called for 17 or 18 times. That collapse led to the mortgage meltdown and our curent recession.

Heavy-handed Democrats in Congress who have nn respect for the free market have also been a severe drag on the economy since 2006.

2. "We're on the verge of at least some kind of health reform." Being "on the verge" of something is not an accomplishment; it's speculation. Being on the verge of "some kind" of "reform" you can't even define at this point is not a positive accomplishment either, espeically when the "some kind" of something in question will restrict liberty, increase waiting times for medical care, foster even greater dependency, and more rapidly bankrupt the treasury.

3. "World opinion of the US is rising." As evidenced by Obama's stunning Olympic failure, Germany's reelection of a conservative and France's growing contempt for Obama's pie-in-the-sky nuclear disarmament appeasement in the face of the growing nuclear menace in Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan?

I haven't heard a positive accomplishment by Obama yet.

[Joe Markowitz]

The standard for when a recession is over is when the GDP rises during the previous quarter. The standard for when we are in a recession is when the GDP shrinks for two consecutive quarters. I believe these standards are pretty universally used among economists. This is why we never know we are in a recession, or whether we are coming out of one, until the latest quarter's economic results are in.

But there are some objective things you can look at, such as that we are no longer worried about the largest financial institutions in the US and the world collapsing, which people were worried about when Obama took office. And as a result of that kind of panic having ended, the stock market is having one of its best years in some time. Unemployment is, as every economist will tell you, a lagging indicator. That is because companies are always slow to increase payroll even when business begins picking up. Therefore we cannot expect unemployment to go down until the economic recovery is well under way. But certainly the outlook is better now that it was a year ago.

In addition to stabilizing the economy, which is a major accomplishment (an accomplishment that I would be the first to admit, Obama must share with former President Bush and Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke), President Obama has also restored the rule of law in this country by renouncing the use of torture. President Bush claimed that the United States does not engage in torture, but as we know, that claim was false. President Obama renounced the use of torture on his first day in office. That is a major positive change for anyone who was shamed by this country's inhumane treatment of prisoners.

President Obama has also restored the US focus on Afghanistan, where it had been diverted to Iraq.

President Obama, by reaching out to Muslims in the Middle East, also might be able to claim some credit for the awakening of protest movements in Iran. It is really too early to make that claim, but there do appear to be direct connections from Obama's speech in Cairo to the largest anti-government demonstrations in Iran since the revolution. That is also a positive change.

President Obama has also brought new energy and focus to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Again it is much to early to judge whether those negotiations will bear fruit or not, but there do appear to be some hopeful signs.

And as the previous poster has mentioned, health care reform legislation is in process. So is climate change legislation. Not everyone will agree that those are positive changes, but those are changes that people elected Obama to accomplish, and he is making substantial progress. So I would have to call them positive changes, because they are changes in the direction that the American people voted for last November.

[Gina Cobb]

Joe, that's a good effort to defend Obama's record. I think you've argued the case about as well as anyone could. However, when I look at my country as it is today and compare it to how it was when Obama took office, I see no actual real world improvements anywhere. There is nothing you can see, taste, or touch. Meanwhile, many objectively verifiable things are worse.

Notice how many of the "accomplishments" you cite are subjective and vague. You say Obama "brought new energy and focus," something else "is in process," "there do appear to be direct connections," he "might be able to claim some credit," etc. That's all subjective. How do you measure "new energy and focus" and how does it actually improve anyone's life? It doesn't.

[Joe Markowitz]

I almost forgot. He also saved General Motors and Ford from liquidation. Imagine if the United States of America did not have a single domestic auto manufacturer. (Chrysler doesn't count since it is being taken over by Fiat.) That almost happened.

You are right that a lot of this is subjective and vague. But I think you would also have to grant that a lot of things that the Obama administration is trying to do are going to take some more time, and also that the effects of many of a president's accomplishments cannot be judged for years.

[Joe Steel]

Joe Markowitz | October 06, 2009 at 06:29 PM:

I almost forgot. He also saved General Motors and Ford from liquidation. Imagine if the United States of America did not have a single domestic auto manufacturer. (Chrysler doesn't count since it is being taken over by Fiat.) That almost happened.

That's a major accomplishment. An America without an auto manufacturing industry would be a step in the wrong direction.

[Joe Steel]

Posted by: Gina Cobb | October 04, 2009 at 11:26 AM:

3. "World opinion of the US is rising." As evidenced by Obama's stunning Olympic failure, Germany's reelection of a conservative and France's growing contempt for Obama's pie-in-the-sky nuclear disarmament appeasement in the face of the growing nuclear menace in Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan?

I haven't heard a positive accomplishment by Obama yet.

Well, now you have. Obama's Nobel is clear evidence of the World's rising opinion of the US. Obama got it pretty much for being "Not Bush."