What good things has Obama done?Mike Rappaport

Update: I am taking the liberty of moving this post, which first appeared over the weekend, up front in an effort to get more suggestions of what good things Obama has done.  So far, there is only one thing that I agree with, and I was hoping for more.  I will blog about this after reviewing all of the comments.

Original Post: Readers of this blog might doubt it, but I actually don't like partisanship.  I view it as a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless.  Of course, my posts on this blog are highly partisan, but my scholarship is much less so.  There is something about the medium of blogging that allows partisanship to flourish.

In the spirit of this Independence Day weekend, I thought would engage in a little nonpartisanship.  I know the things that Obama has done that I believe are bad or awful.  But has he done anything good?  Really.  Can you name something that you genuinely and strongly agree with?  

I admit it is not easy to come up with examples, but I will start.  The "surge" in Afghanistan might be one.  I really don't regard Iraq and Afghanistan as comparable.  I never thought democracy was possible in Afghanistan, but I do regard it as possible in Iraq.  Still, a surge would seem to be the correct response to the troubles there.  Whether that surge has enough troops, however, is another question.

Are there any other examples?  Some might say that Obama's plans in Iraq are good, but again I am not so sure.  It is true that he largely followed the Bush plans, but those were designed under significant political constraint.  I would have liked to see the withdrawal move more slowly.    

So what am I missing?

Comments

[The Masked Defender]

De-coupling USA foreign policy from Israel's. That is good. Israel is not dying by our side in Iraq or Afghanistan; there is no reason we should put our soldier's at risk for Israel. Israel is not our ally, but rather AIPAC has bribed USA politicans to inordinately support Israel. There is not anything anti-Semetic in this simple observation. Further, Israel and the Arabs may do as they like in regard to the West Bank; fight over it or not. It is a free planet. This post does not judge, but merely asserts the USA should maintain neutrality and not confuse Israel with an actual ally; whatever occassional non-lethal assistance Israel provides for the billions the USA has given it over the years.

Also, Amadminijad won the election. Obama is criticizing the violence against non-violent however unjustified protestors, but appropriately, that is all.

TMD

[Mike]

1. Credit card reform legislation. It was criminal what credit card companies had gotten away with. The reform is not perfect, but it was something.

2. Nominated the first Hispanic female Supreme Court justice. We white guys poo-pah such things. But it really does matter to children to see people "like them" succeeding in life. Obama was going to nominate a liberal, anyway. Whites have enough role models.

3. I second what TMD said. It's time we stopped putting Israel's interest in front of our own.

[Lou Gots]

We do not put Israel's interests before our own. Israel, as it exists, is a foil, a pretext for our interests. Our interests are to dominate the geopolitical heartland, as Great Britain once did. When that power faded into obsecurity at the time on the Second World War, it was necessary for the United States to step up. We do not play the great game well, so facts were created through the recognition and propping up of Israel to stand our interests up against isolationist, peace-creep and comsymp pressures. It has worked very, very well. For us to disengage from our role as holder of world power, Israel would have to disappear. Obama is not going to do this.

Domestically, Effendi Obama has accomplished rather less than nothing. He is a confidence man who has ridden the soft bigotry of lowered expectations all the way to the top, and he rides it to this day. He continues to get free ride after free ride. If it were not for his privileged minority status, he would be a laughing stock.

If pressed to identify a single accomplishment, of the huckster, this shuck-and-jive artist, I should turn to his back-handed support of the right to keep and bear arms, which came about through his bait-and-switch manuever directed against his own base. He is canny enough to understand that to take on the gun-rights movement would interfere with his true objectives which are to amass loot, power and more loot.

[Corkie the Dog]

Issuing an executive order to stop prosecuting medical marijuana patients in those states where it is legal.

Sincerely,
Corkie the Dog

[anon]

Made Jesse Jackson irrelevant to the MSM. Sure, he was well on his way to that for the American public, but he was still the "go to" guy for the media. Not anymore.

I think Obama has been an improvement in the way race is perceived in America on both sides of the racial divide.

However, I still think his policies have been terrible.

[krome]

He hasn't gotten us all killed (yet).

He hasn't irretrievably destroyed us economically (yet).

[james wilson]

Yes, he will be worse by far than jimmy carter, and like carter, give us another oportunity to do the right thing. If not, we will be 5% of the world's population using 5% of its resourses.

[Jonathan]

What Corkie the Dog said. And he hasn't attempted any gun bans yet, but saying that's an accomplishment is like saying that not having set your house on fire yet is an accomplishment.

[green]

alot of people are blaming obama for george bush mistakes he is the one that put this country in this mess put the blame where it is due, i mean most americans voted bush back into office after he sent children to a fake war and took all the jobs away as well as raised gas prices, obama is now trying to clean his big mess up. ooh the sad part is do you think that bush jr cares if he did this to our country hell no he is living like a king in texas........

[Johnny]

Getting the F out of Iraq (sort of).

[thedaddy]

Obamas positive accomplishments to date = 0

Obamas destructive accomplishments to date = to numerous to count.

[Tim K]

President Obama has disabused libertarians and conservatives of any illusions that he will pursue moderate or "pragmatic" policies. He may even have disabused some moderates and liberals of such views.

[Tom Smith]

He did not buy a poodle for his kids, even if he selected another inappropriate breed.

[krome]

green up there is quite the delusional twit.

[Corkie the Dog]

Add one more: the following speech about problems in Africa:

"And yet the fact is we're in 2009," continued the US president. "The West and the United States has not been responsible for what's happened to Zimbabwe's economy over the last 15 or 20 years.

"It hasn't been responsible for some of the disastrous policies that we've seen elsewhere in Africa. And I think that it's very important for African leadership to take responsibility and be held accountable."

I could also add that his election has made it "cool" to like America again, abroad. This is an opportunity, which should not be squandered.

Sincerely,
Corkie the Dog

[Sisyphus]

He's also made Democrats accountable for the foreign policy prosecution of the GWOT. Hence, Obama's administration is seeing the wisdom of some choices (whether or not they are ultimately right) made during the Bush administration, e.g. indefinite detention of prisoners of war/terrorists, bombing Pakistani redoubts of the Taliban, surging sufficient troops to clear and hold in insurgency conflicts, etc. Obama is fast moving us to a foreign policy consensus on the broader, continuing aspects of the GWOT.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with these policies, he is helping to bring about consensus for them, and that should reduce the destructive partisanship over foreign policy in the coming years. We can't have a foreign policy consensus until both parties are basically responsible for making the same decisions. And we will need that consensus to succeed in what will likely be a long, perhaps generational, struggle.

[curious]

Sisyphus,

If your reasoning is right, and he is moving us to a consensus on items where the Democrats were once condemning Bush, then it seems that this "improvement" is made possible only because the Democrats were so reflexively anti-Bush on all those items to begin with. Had they been willing to weigh policies case-by-case, and not scream about them all under Bush, we could have had more consensus years ago. So the "destructive partisanship" he's "fixing" is of his side's own making. And as a Senator and candidate, he contributed as much as anyone to that.

So it's hard for me to credit this new-found wisdom as an accomplishment, except under the general category of "not being as stupid as before."

[Mike]

This isn't "done," but Obama is trying:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/education/11educ.html?hp

Companies like Sallie Mae are just middlemen who make obscene profits by acting as a broker. How can anyone defend them?

[Alvin Curren]

Obama ordered the sniper shooting of the black teenage pirates to free a U.S. citizen held for randsom.

[LexAequitas]

Paid attention to the military instead of state congressional lobbyists in ending support for expensive projects like the F-22 Raptor and the stealth destroyer (which was technically not feasible anyway).