One more debate about Obama. (No link because it’s not worth pursuing)
I’m so tired of lazy thinking, no matter where it comes from. On the left we once prided ourselves on the depth of our analysis. Now we say shit that makes us feel good, with pretty much no regard for whether it is true or not.
Look at the details and you will see that Obama’s record on health care, climate change, non-fossil fuel energy, raising taxes on the rich, gay marriage, immigration, and regulating the finance industry has been extraordinary, especially in light of what he was fighting against. The economic recovery has been slow but steady–and would have been much better if Congress followed his lead.
Did he compromise and temporize to accomplish what he did? He sure did. So did FDR and every other president who has changed the country. Did he make some bad mistakes, on education, where he has been misguided from the beginning, or trying to strike a deal with the Republicans on the budget, where he held on to a bad strategy for far too long? Yes. Did he miss the opportunity to deal with the mortgage problem, which might have led to a faster economy. Absolutely.
But again, I can’t think of anyone in our history who has gotten it right all the time. And I can think of no one who has done so much with control of Congress for only 9 months–and with the most extreme, and racist opposition to him in Congress and in he country.
And I don’t understand how people think we make progress by bitching constantly about the guy who has been fighting on our side and by denigrating every partial accomplishment of the last seven years, especially when those partial accomplishments set the stage for future ones.