It often seems like no matter what you do you are going to get criticized for it, you’re damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. There is such a thing as fair criticism and there is also unfair criticism. This President has had to weather more than his fair share of unfair criticism. Much of the unfair criticism started during the campaign and persists to this day. Obama has been called a socialist, a Muslim, a terrorist and that's just the start. There are people who believe that he wasn't born in the United States. He was even called a liar in front of the Congress during the State of the Union address on live television.
Unless you've been living under a rock you would know that we elected the first African American president almost four years ago. The rise of Barack Obama as a candidate in the 2008 election was completely unexpected. Early in the beginning of the campaign all signs were pointing to Hillary Clinton becoming the nominee. In a year where Republicans were extremely unpopular, it was likely that whoever won the nomination would become President. At the start of the campaign, Barack Obama was known as being the first African American to serve in the Senate since the post-Civil War era and that he was the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention...and that was about it.
It often seems, at least from an outsider's perspective, that starting a Presidential campaign is a lot like starting a fire. In the beginning it starts out small. You take two sticks and rub them together really hard, often to the point of exhaustion if you don't do it right. In campaigns it often starts with some handshaking and the requisite baby kissing, speech making and media appearances. As often the case with trying to start a fire, it's hard work that often fails. But sometimes you rub those sticks together just right. Or in the case of a campaign something similar happens: you get a spark. Sometimes that spark is blown away by a treacherous breeze and then other times it catches fire.
It's very likely that when Barack Obama first started his campaign he wasn't really serious about it. At the time the general consensus was that Hillary Clinton was going to win the nomination. She was playing to win and had all the money, organization and most importantly the momentum to do it. When Obama got his underway it was likely just for fun, or just to get his face out there for a future run at some other office. It's not unheard of, many people run for President just to get a specific issue in front of the American people. But something unexpected happened in 2008. Somehow, Barack Obama managed an unlikely win in the Iowa caucus. Somehow, he managed to catch fire.
The fire then burned brighter than anything seen in modern times. He went from an almost unknown to a serious contender almost overnight. In the beginning he didn't have a lot of the help the big players had like the exploratory committees, the think tanks and the Super-Pacs of today. Of course it didn't stay that way. Eventually the Obama campaign became another campaign like any other. Obama rode on a massive tidal wave of support. He seemed unstoppable and invincible. He was a rock star. The American electorate was fed up with the politics of the Bush years, the secrecy, the wars, and the unfolding financial crisis. Hope and Change were the words of the day. And in the end for the first time in years we had a Presidential election decided by 11pm EST, where before they were so close that it often ran into days or even weeks.
While Obama may have been popular, it did not shield him from criticism. There we allegations of associations with a slumlord, Tony Rezko, and former Weather Underground member William Ayers. There were the incendiary remarks made by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. His experience was called into question as he had served almost two terms in the Illinois Senate and was currently serving as a U.S. Senator. There was also the revelation of teenage drug use and other personal allegations gleaned from his autobiography.
Obama is now in the beginning of a tough reelection campaign. These days it seems the hope and change of yesterday has become the gridlock and cynicism of today. He promised to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to reform Health Care and balance the budget. But more importantly he promised to end the partisan bickering in Washington and usher in a new era in politics. The soaring rhetoric of the 2008 campaign is a strange contrast to today. The enthusiasm and hope have long ago evaporated leaving us in a quagmire.
Obama was critical of the handling of the war in Afghanistan and opposed the Iraq War since the beginning. We were promised an end to both wars. At this stage the Iraq War is all but done, the main combat force has been gone since late 2011 but the sectarian tensions are still there. It often seems that the other war, the war in Afghanistan was one of the first victims of the Iraq War. The resources diverted to the Iraq War gave the Taliban time to regroup in Pakistan. Right now there is a fragile peace but who can say how long it lasts. It seems that the Taliban and the Iranians are just waiting for us to leave. The idea of "nation building" in Iraq and Afghanistan was sold to us under the previous administration, likely without the thought that the real work to implement it would have to be done by the next administration.
George W. Bush may have started the Global War on Terrorism but Obama is the one continuing and expanding it. The use of drones and UAV's has been greatly expanded from reconnaissance to combat and combat support missions. There have been a lot of high profile terrorists killed using UAV's at the expense of some "collateral damage." The usage of drones began in Iraq and Afghanistan and has since expanded to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. One of the targets of these drone strikes was radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen. While most Americans are not likely to mourn a dead terrorist, it is sobering that he was effectively sentenced to death without any form of trial or due process. And remember, right after he was elected President, Barack Obama was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize.
We were promised a more open and accessible government. We were told that budget items and expenditures would be put online. We were told that there would be more open access to the back rooms where the deals are made. Nothing has really changed in this regard. Even worse is the Obama Administration's treatment of whistleblowers. The current administration has brought more prosecutions against whistleblowers using the Espionage Act than all the previous Presidents combined. This is ironic considering that while in the Senate he worked in favor of protecting whistleblowers. Also, it seems that Obama was having a hard time finding appointees for positions in the administration that had actually paid their taxes.
Candidate Obama made health care reform one of the centerpieces of his campaign. Like anything else this was easier said than done. He had to abandon the demands of his liberal base for a single payer system and had to settle on a compromise with the individual insurance mandate. Like many other large bills that make it through Congress, this bill had a lot of sugar in it to make it go down easier. It gives the health insurance companies millions of new customers that must buy coverage. The end customer gets some protections for people with preexisting conditions.
While it was well intentioned, the Affordable Healthcare Act is not without its drawbacks. Primary, this bill has polarized many people much like "Hillarycare" did during the Clinton years. It was the pursuit of healthcare reform that mobilized the Republicans to widespread gains in Congress in 1992 and under Obama again in 2010. It goes without saying that passing this bill cost Obama a significant amount of political capital that threatened the rest of his agenda. The Republicans in the Senate have used the power of the filibuster to effectively nullify the Senate's ability to accomplish anything. The new bill has also expanded the level of bureaucracy present in the health care industry. Medicare is already troubled with fraud, this will only make it worse. As Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google once said "The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists," this law was no different despite Obama's promises to the contrary to dampen the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups.
During the campaign it seemed that Obama's favorability ratings were inversely proportional to the state of the economy. As the economy got worse, Obama's poll numbers got better. As President, his handling of the economy has been lackluster. There was the $787 billion dollar stimulus package. The stimulus was supposed to save 2 million jobs, it ended up only saving about 640,000. In purely statistical terms the stimulus was a success, the GDP numbers went from -6.4% in 2009 Q1 to +5% in 2009 Q4, and the Dow went up nearly 4,000 points. Despite this many Americans view the stimulus as a failure. While Wall Street and the banks seem to be doing much better the situation in middle America has been largely unchanged. There is a widespread belief in America that Wall Street and the banks got bailed out while the middle class was left to fend for itself. There have also been quite a few Obama Administration ideas that didn't work like the "Cash for Clunkers" program, which mainly succeeded causing some parts shortages in the auto salvage business and taking a lot of Ford Explorers off our highways.
Another one of the great ironies of the Obama Administration is that they have maintained and expanded on many policies of the unpopular Bush era. One of his campaign promises was to shut down the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which is still in operation today. The Patriot Act is still in full effect, sacrificing our liberty for protection from terrorists. Obama compromised in order to expand the length of welfare coverage by extending the Bush Tax cuts, the largest single driver of deficit spending today. The Bush Administration was frequently criticized for its expansion of executive power while our current President has claimed "Executive Privilege" in the congressional investigation surrounding the Fast and Furious scandal. It seems strange that as a candidate he ran on a platform of change while many things from before remain the same.
There is no doubt that Barack Obama has fallen short from the lofty goals and soaring rhetoric of the 2008 campaign. To put it more simply he promised far too much. In the short term the main consequence rests on if he can manage to get reelected. Over the long term however his example may serve only to deepen the jaded cynicism that has consumed politics today. Right now, the approval ratings for all three branches of government are at record lows. This will only make it more difficult to shake the American people from the apathy that currently plagues the entire political establishment.
