President Barack Obama. Photo by Luke Thomas.
August 2, 2010
I voted for Barack Obama for president because I saw him as left of center. Obama’s record as an Illinois state senator (1997-2004) and his short time as a U.S. Senator (2005-2008) provided me with little or no evidence that he was a progressive or a far-left liberal. Perhaps his “call for change,” the fact that he is the first Black-American U.S. president, and some wishful thinking, gave Obama a progressive look to some. Hilary Clinton or John McCain/Sarah Palin were not acceptable alternatives for me. For the most part, I am not disappointed in Obama’s presidency so far.
Let’s take a look at his record of accomplishments during his first 17-months in office. Arguably, he has done more than FDR and LBJ — the standard many use to measure accomplishments — in the same amount of time in office.
Here are just a few of his major accomplishments: health care reform (imperfect though it may be); a $789 billion economic stimulus package; auto industry bailout; selecting Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court; credit card reform; allowing more federal money for stem cell research; new policy on Cuba (allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones); financial regulatory reform; successful challenge to Arizona’s immigration law; and improved relations with Russia. And this is only a partial list.
Although the Democrats hold a majority in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, Obama had to deal with an obstructionist Republican party, the Congressional Blue Dog Democrats, and the lack of a filibuster-proof Senate much of the time. At the beginning of the 111 Congress, there were 435 Representatives with 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans. Of the 257, 54 are a coalition of fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats and without them, the Democrats do not have a majority in House.
At the start of the 111 Congress, there were 58 Democrat Senators with Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders officially listed as Independent, but who usually caucused with the Democrats, giving them 60 votes. Of these, there were about nine Blue Dog Democrats. Without them and Lieberman and Sanders, the Democrats did not have a majority, and certainly not a filibuster-proof Senate. At the time of the health care debate, Senator Joe Lieberman said he would join a Republican filibuster of any health care legislation that included a public option, leaving the Democrats at the time one short to defeat a filibuster. That’s why the health care legislation does not include a public option.
Clearly, the Blue Dogs exercise considerable sway in both Houses of Congress and Obama’s (and Nancy Pelosi’s and Harry Reid’s) accomplishments are that much more remarkable.
Unfortunately, there is little media attention given to how much he has done in his first 17 months in office. Rather, the media has focused almost exclusively on Obama’s critics, without holding them responsible for the uncivil, nonconstructive tone of their disagreements or without holding the previous administration responsible for the mess Obama inherited.
I admire Obama for focusing on results that take time to come to fruition. When things go too slowly to suit the left or not in the direction that suits them, they become frustrated and blame the moral character of their leaders. Some day, the left (and progressives) might get around to blaming Republicans.
Of course, there is much to be done during the remaining half of Obama’s first term in office. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, immigration reform, global warming, an energy policy, eliminating the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, reduce unemployment, and reducing the $1.47 trillion federal deficit, come quickly to mind. The very difficult takes a little bit longer. This means that liberals and progressives must keep Obama’s feet to the fire during the remaining part of his first term in office.
Hopefully, the democrat and independent voters will wake up in time to punish Republican candidates at the mid-term elections. To do otherwise, would be a vote against there own self interests.
Editor’s Note: Views expressed by columnists are not necessarily the views or beliefs of FogCityJournal.com. FCJ supports free speech in all its varied forms and provides a forum for a complete spectrum of viewpoints.
The Hunger Site
August 5, 2010 at 7:40 am
NEW YORK – The Obama administration has repudiated some of the Bush administration’s most egregious national security policies but is in danger of institutionalizing others permanently into law, thereby creating a troubling “new normal,” according to a new report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/obama-administration-danger-establishing-new-normal-worst-bush-era-policies-says-a
August 3, 2010 at 1:08 pm
@Marc: Good summary of Obama legislative record.
August 3, 2010 at 7:37 am
@Rob, Obama caved to the forces of disappointment and stasis when he larded half of the “stimulus” bill with tax cuts to appease Republicans, none of whom voted for the measure.
If the “Health Insurers Corporate Welfare Act of 2010” which requires Americans to purchase a product from a private corporation with no guarantees that it provide affordable, complete health coverage, is not a no-brainer winner, then it will not provide an electoral boost to Obama other than to instigate corporate contributions maybe.
Financial reform, likewise, is a baby step towards replacing Glass Steagall with appropriate measures to insulate gambling from savings and lending and does nothing to remove the public backstop from megabanks that remain too big to fail.
In other words, if Obama had delivered on his promises of hope and change, then people like Ralph E. Stone would not need to be defending him against charges that he’s just kicking the can down the road.
-marc
August 2, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Hmmm. . . still no one but Rob Anderson, coming to Obama’s defense? World seems to have changed, at least in some small way.
August 2, 2010 at 9:56 am
@ Marc: Ditto. We elect “representatives” to go to Washington to cash in, as the Clintons did so royally and continue to. I don’t plan to vote in any more federal elections.
@Ralph and anyone else reading:
I recommend “Will Obama Administration screw Africa, like all the rest?,” by Ugandan American Black Star News Editor and investigative reporter Milton Allimadi, http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/6714/2010-07-29.html, which I keep trying to talk Luke into publishing here.
Luke? Thanks for publishing as much as you have about Rwanda/Congo/Kagame/Clinton/Rick Warren/Obama/AFRICOM. That adds FCJ to the handful of outlets who’ve dared to go there, but I keep wishing you’d publish Milton’s piece. How about a little journalistic balance to this? Milton’s a Ugandan American, star investigative reporter, and until now, diehard Obama supporter.
Rwanda’s faux election, coming up on August 9th, Uganda’s on February 11th and Obama’s escalating militarization of Africa, seems finally close to making even Milton throw in the towel.
As he wrote:
“This is abominable and harkens to the days when here in the United States, elections used to be held in the Southern States while Black voters were either barred from voting, being lynched, being “disappeared,” or showered with water cannons.”
Obama hasn’t said a word and he just sent a dozen teams of election observers to validate the faux re-election of Paul Kagame, one of the worst killers on the planet—trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, armed and “advised” by the U.S.
And he’s a Black man himself, of half African parentage, so it conveniently confuses a lot of people, including African Americans, whom the Democrats consider their birthright.
August 2, 2010 at 9:50 am
Yeah,
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
h.
August 2, 2010 at 9:43 am
Notice that Marc doesn’t have anything to say about the stimulus bill, the reform of our medical system, or the recent financial reform legislation. He and Livingston are typical lefty ideologues.
August 2, 2010 at 8:28 am
Here in San Francisco, progressives hold the Board of Supervisors, yet a conservative mayor has managed to run circles around the Board.
Contrast this to Washington, where an ostensibly “left of center” President is in office, and the Democrat Party holds substantial majorities in both houses of congress, yet the rump GOP manages to set the terms of the debate.
And who can forget the way that Bush II managed to run roughshod over the Democrats for 8 years even though Democrats were in a more powerful legislative position during those years than the Republicans are now.
The Democrats are playing for keeps, playing to win, except that their record indicates that they’re playing for the other team. Bill Clinton arrived in Washington DC a man of modest means, yet this weekend his daughter married a hedge fund executive in a multimillion dollar ceremony. Does he still feel our pain after his regime repealed Glass Steagall? Did Clinton “focus in on the economy like a laser beam” and manage to vaporize the entirety of the domestic industrial production capacity by offshoring it?
With that executive power comes the ability to squeeze members of congress to extend offers that they cannot refuse. Yet Obama is content to not do that, preferring to balance by political grace the election results as if the Republicans had won anything approaching 50% of the vote.
In so doing, his bait and switch from a message of hope and change to more of the brutal same soils the message and closes the door to future progressive appeals. In short, Americans probably believe that if you’re going to have corporate dominance, let the GOP professionals run that kind of government instead of amateurs like Obama.
Hence, the Democrats are going to be fully responsible for their own failures in November as Americans realize that we’ve been cheated and that there are no viable options to the contrary permitted in this sham of a democracy.
-marc
August 1, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Stone gets an E for effort– trying to defend Bush III– and the sham two party system.
One might say his arguments are refreshingly iconoclastic when the so-called left that ignored Obama’s faults when Stone didn’t are now increasingly criticizing him in a futile effort to reform him.
Those turkeys that still believe that our “representatives” work for us will forever grasp at straws to choose the lesser of two evils. They will still write letters bound for circular files and still make phone calls which they seem to think are even better– perhaps to get some tokens– a little extra feed before the axe turns on them.
And it ultimately will– no matter how quisling they become, no matter how much evil they pretend not to see.
Incredible to me how they count Blue Dogs, yadda yadda. Don’t they see that our representatives are all owned– lock, stock, and barrel?