bilordinary wrote:
Do point out those many fine qualities!
No President was/is flawless, but from Daniel Albert...an American citizen, writer and blogger currently in Norway:
'Here’s something you need to know about Barack Obama: A lack of bad things happened under his watch.
His administration didn’t rack up a bunch of indictments, or have very many people plead or be found guilty of a crime, and that’s with republicans constantly investigating them and wanting to find them guilty of a crime. You can’t ask for a more biased set of investigations, and a cleaner slate after they were done. They couldn’t find a damned thing. They manufactured fake controversies and put them on Fox News, but the proof is in the count of people in jail or found guilty of crimes.
That didn’t happen, and you can count on republican and democratic administrations before Obama’s to be full of criminals. More so on the republican side, by miles and miles, but Obama’s was the cleanest.
You should also know the economy was in the absolute toilet when he took over, and immediately turned things around with TARP and bailouts and stimulus and government spending. The unemployment rate dropped and the stock market rose steadily for every year of his 8 year Presidency.
You should also know that Obamacare ended up saving the government money because it was paid for and then some, it was better than revenue neutral, it was revenue positive. It provided needed coverage to tens of millions of Americans who couldn’t afford coverage and had preexisting conditions. Obamacare literally saved countless lives and is not the reason the current deficit is out of control. You can blame the Bush and Trump tax cuts for that.
You should also know, the democrats only had about 4 months where they could actually pass an agenda through the senate, because it required them to have a full 60 votes to overcome Mitch McConnell’s filibusters, and for various reasons, they only had 59 or 58 votes at any given time, and then a special election happened and the republicans ended up with 41 votes, allowing the filibuster to return.
So everything they managed to accomplish happened in the space of a few short months. No, they were not able to fix everything. No they were not able to pass another round of stimulus spending. No they were not able to fix the entire budget, even though they did start paying for government and the deficit lowered every year thereafter.
Obama also ordered the mission to kill Bin Laden, despite it not being a slam dunk where he was, after Bush declared he wasn’t a priority and failed to stop him from escaping Tora Bora when we had him cornered.
Obama also treated his republican opposition with respect and didn’t bar Fox News from the White House press room, and didn’t trash conservatives and pick fights with prominent conservatives.
Obama also never cheated on his wife, at home with their infant daughter, with prostitutes and porn stars. Obama is not a serial divorcee. Obama was never accused of rape, sexual harassment, groping, and walking in on them in the changing room, by dozens of women, several of them former employees of Donald Trump.
Obama never directed foreign governments to hack into the servers of the RNC or into the emails of his political opponents.
Obama did not tell 20 lies a day or invent arguments in debates with republicans out of whole cloth.
Obama never told his supporters to assault or rough up republican hecklers.
Obama actually met with our troops who are risking their lives for this country, and unlike cadet bone spurs, actually treats his generals with respect and valued their advice and counsel.
Obama was also not an expert on economics, he was a law professor. He met with experts on economics and took their advice, to turn the economy around after the Bush disaster.
Obama was able to listen and learn, and be there for his troops and his country. He was there for everyone in the country whether they voted for him or not.
That is what made America great. A leader who knew how to be one, and one who set a positive example for others to follow. A leader who knew how to be a father and devoted husband, a leader who made friends and allies across the globe, under whose watch America’s reputation and favorability had never been higher since World War 2. Obama didn’t routinely unilaterally declare treaties and trade agreements and defense agreements null and void, and damage the reputation of the United States and our golden word, and cheapen it.
Trump has all of those faults. The deficit is skyrocketing under Trump. His business entanglements in Russia and Saudi Arabia are causing him to favor petty thugs, murderers, and assassins over our time honored alliances and trade partners. He is a personal moral disaster area and he has all the leadership qualities of old gym socks, and has absolutely nothing to offer democrats or people who didn’t vote for him, doesn’t even want
I can’t say Obama was a great President. That’s up to the reader to decide. I can say that, by comparison to Don the Con, Obama is the greatest saint that has ever existed in human history. And so is every other President apart from Trail of Tears Jackson.
By comparison, Richard M. Nixon was a pure and innocent choir boy, and genuinely likeable, and comparatively much less criminal.'