If one excludes the 5 Presidents leading up to Lincoln (my all-time worst Presidents), where do you place Obama on the list of Presidents as of this point in time? For me, he'd be in the lower 10%. For 2 years he had a supermajority in the Senate (no cloture) and a full majority in the House and pretty much all he got through was perhaps the single worst piece of legislation in the history of the country. He raised the deficit and debt so much that it doesn't even seem real or possible to the point it guarantees insolvency for the federal government. The economy continues to struggle and the majority of jobs created are minimum wage and/or part time. Benghazi was an unforgivable mistake that resulted out of pure incompetence. He's proven to be a bully led by punitive actions (see the remains of the coal industry as an example), steadfastly refuses to be an adequate compromiser and doesn't seem to have the ability a chief executive needs to either lead or bring people together. Add to that the pure divisiveness of his administration and it's a pretty poor scorecard. On the plus side, Benghazi aside, I think he has handled foreign affairs pretty well. That said, this new strategy in Afghanistan of keeping troops dying there indefinitely is just wrong to me. I also like many of his ideas on the environment. Now, I am not starting this to pass judgment on Bush (another bottom 10%'er), so I'd like to keep him out of this.
I think he's pretty much like every other so-so president. in the middle. I think Bush was the worst president since Nixon, but I think a lot of what made him worse is some of the things that Obama hasn't or won't fix/overturn. There are qualifiers for each president of course, but until Obama leads us into two wars (one of which could maybe be justified, and neither were well thought out), tanked the economy, or broke into the other parties HQ or escalated a war in Vietnam (BOTH Johnson and Nixon there), I'm not sure he's among the worst. He's not among the best, but I don't think any President in the last 65 years, realistically, is on the list or even the top 10.
He handled foreign affairs well? He supported the Muslim Brotherhood, after being warned they were bad guys. His staff said the MB were non-violent and not religious. Bull. He supplied Mexican drug cartels with fully auto weapons, which have been used on countless murders. He wanted to freak'n bomb Syria. I said Iran will not get the bomb on his watch. It maybe hasn't happened yet, but it will. He's insulted the Brits, one of our few true allies. There's more, but I don't have time. Yeah, he's in the bottom 10%, at best, imo. Go Blazers
I feel about Bush II as I do Eisenhower. Both had a perfect slate to do really good things and just sat there and pretty much did nothing. Neither were prepared to be a President and never really grew into the job (like Kennedy did). As to Nixon, Watergate aside I uised to think he was a medium President but as I learn more about his administration the less I think of his Presidency.
we're not supposed to be civil!!! btw Re: Nixon. his good side (China) doesn't outweigh everything else. And you're right, some Presidents are handed a good deal and blow it/make it worse/do nothing to make it better (the two you mentioned) and some are given a shitty deal.
One of the worst two in my lifetime. Carter got a peace prize for bribing Egypt to make peace with Israel. Fair enough. But I cannot think of anything else good that came out of his 4 years and I can think of all sorts of bad things, from the hostage crisis to days of malaise. Obama got a peace price for... I give up, you tell me. His signature accomplishment is in meltdown, and he's accomplished very little else. And I cannot see how anyone thinks his foreign policy is good, nor his economy. As far as foreign policy goes, I really have to question whether Hillary was any good at it at all, as well. What did she accomplish? Do tell. Nixon wasn't a bad president. He was a criminal who was a very good president. Aside from watergate and coverup (the bad things), you'll be hard pressed to find he was bad at his actual job. He made peace with the Russians and the Chinese. He ended the Vietnam war. His social agenda wasn't unlike LBJ's; many social programs started by him.
In meltdown due to republicans purposely trying to sabotage it, and iirc, a group that flooded the website and caused it to crash.
No excuses. Republicans didn't make his WWW site, nor did they write the bits in the law that are causing insurance companies to cancel policies by the millions. No excuses.
The two best presidents in my lifetime were Reagan and Clinton. Bipartisan choices, but the truth as I see it.
The handling in Syria was genius I think, explain a scenario better then them giving up their chemical weapons, without us having to attack? ATF allowing guns into Mexico started under Bush... though I doubt either president knew anything about them until the shit hit the fan. Claiming that 'he' supplied drug cartels with weapons is just ignorant. You seriously think Iran will get a nuke? Seriously? They have been crippled by sanctions and for the first time I think they are actually thinking about giving up the quest. Honestly I don't know how I'd rate him yet, but the most of what I see people complaining about seems pretty lame.
If someone sabotages your attempt at something, how exactly is that your fault? How is it an "excuse" to say that there was a cyber attack on the website, therefore causing it to lag? Yeah, they should've been better prepared for that, but if those attacks didn't happen, it wouldn't have been an issue.
Mine as well. I think Obama is one of the worst Presidents in history. I'm not sure he is THE worst....maybe not even the worst in my lifetime, but he probably is.
Putin sure pulled his fat out of the fire, didn't he? Amazing how you can spin this as positive for Obama. He was about to bomb Syria on his own, with not a single nation supporting us.
Wow. You get your news from one biased news source, apparently. The truth is it took thousands of people and years to build up a site like Amazon or Google, one that can handle a lot of traffic. They stand up to withering cyber attacks constantly (as does S2, FWIW). The govt. had virtually unlimited funding to throw at this, so there is no excuse for some puny cyber attack or whatever the next excuse du jour is.
I don't really see the website issue as an indictment on his administration, per se. I mean, the fact it failed can happen in this age of uber-technology. So no problems there. But the fact the web site was a non competitive bid to a company where the main cog is a personal friend of the first lady is my gripe. Where's the due dilligence?
How is ACA not a failure? There are more people without insurance now than before it was passed. Millions more. Millions who had insurance to begin with. It hasn't made insurance cheaper, either. It's putting insurance out of reach of affordability (so much for the A in ACA) of the middle class. Not a bit of sabotage involved, your protestations to the contrary.
You think they would have agreed to anything without the threat? I don't. Previously without the threat they didn't. They were not part of the UN Treaty banning use of chemical weapons. They are now. There is no way Putin could have pushed for that to happen without our threat of force.
Q: How would you rank Obama? A: Incomplete Any other answer is riddled with self prejudices and canned partisan responses.
