Was Obama actually that bad of a president?

His legacy could easily be that he meant well but didn't get much of consequence done. Like most presidents. Probably remembered as a good speaker. If it is so hard for people to understand that ISIS or their like were going to set up shop regardless of when we left, well I'm not sure what kind of case can be made to such a person. They would blame whoever made the decision to leave regardless of who and when instead of the person who started it.

 

Heh, that could be applied to many Presidents.

I guess it is hard for me to understand that ISIS was inevitable, no matter what we did or didn't do. I find it hard to believe that ISIS could have carved out a state with parts of Iraq if we had not removed US troops from there, but I'm not interested in helping or hurting any particular President's legacy.

 

Occupying Iraq may delay, but would not have prevented, the rise of ISIS. Iraq is not like Japan. Japan respected us because Bushido demands they respect victorious warriors. Islamists won't respect us because we are infidels. Nothing we tried to do in Iraq would have been seen as legitimate to them. So nothing we did would have helped. Outlasting them is unlikely, especially given that our presence caused radicalization because it proved we are out to westernize them.

 

No they were never going to love us but we had the military means to prevent a terrorist state from forming out of the territories of two countries when we were there. I think that could have been prevented.

 

Maybe if we never left. But that would not be cost-effective.

 

Since we're been pretty steadily deploying troops back into Iraq I'm not sure about that.

 

Well he destroyed the middle east instead of pulling everyone out. He caused a race war. He's now started a war on police officers. He's that bad.

 

Blaaaaaming Obaaaama for the Great Recession and 30 yeas of "trickle down" economics again, are we? You're a good little soldier.

 

Although I did not vote for Obama, I did not vote against him with any enthusiasm. When he won in 2008, I wished him well, and I hoped my misgivings about him were wrong and that, for the sake of my country, he'd be a great president.

One of my first disappointments was the "Fast and Furious" fiasco. No one was ever held to account for this, and the Obama administration clammed up about it. So much for the transparency we were promised.

Similarly, no one was fired or held to account for the IRS scandal. And again, we all encountered an impenetrable wall of cover-up. I thought this was a terrible breach of trust and a betrayal of the expectation that our government should uphold the law politically blindly. When our government is allowed to use the IRS as a political weapon, we are all in trouble.

Obama had promised us change, transparency, and that it wouldn't be the same old "politics as usual" in his administration. I thought these two events blew all of that right out of the water.

Next item ... I am skeptical that Obamacare will survive. I am skeptical that it is financially viable. I think it may collapse on itself sometime in the next president's tenure. I doubt that history will see Obamacare as a great achievement.

Next item ...

He appointed Hillary Clinton as SOS. My opinion is that she was completely incompetent in that role. There are professionals in our diplomatic corps and in the military with vastly more experience and having spent a lifetime in the field, and he picked her.

Next item ...

The war against Libya was a gigantic mistake. Libya was experiencing a civil war, but it was not threatening us or its neighbors. Libya's civil war was none of our business.

Next item ... Having learned nothing from our history with Iraq and Libya, showing a stunning lack of foresight, Obama intervened into the Syrian civil war. He took on a "violent regime change" policy that must have made the most hawkish conservatives around Washington - the people we call "neo-cons" - smile. We made war against Syria, only this time it was with proxies instead of our own boots on the ground. We armed them, and we trained them. The resulting chaos and loss of governance in Syria is what gave Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) the ability to consolidate and take territory. They re-branded themselves as ISIS and swept into Iraq. Like Libya, this civil war was none of our business. Today we have close to half a million dead, a huge refugee problem, and whole cities in ruins in that country. And Obama and Clinton bear responsibility, and they could have just stayed out of it. There is no use in blaming Bush for this one. This was their decision and theirs alone. And today, the prospects for that country are worse than ever. Even if ISIS is eliminated, the war will go on. The Russians are involved, the Turks are involved, the Syrian army, Hezbollah, the FSA, the Kurds, and the U.S. with our Special Forces and air war. This country is absolutely screwed. I see no end to this. I just see more death, destruction, and suffering for a long time to come.

Next item ...

Race relations and the poor ... President Obama was in a unique, first time in our history, position to inspire and to take a strong, activist role to make dramatic and positive changes for the long term betterment of the black underclass. Having come from Chicago, I would have thought he would be acutely aware of the need for this. But he never did this. He has been almost completely passive, seemingly having no interest in this opportunity. The only thing he has done has been to send legions of FBI agents to wherever there is a shooting of a black person by a white police officer. Other than that? Nothing. 8 years later, race relations in this country have deteriorated, and the black underclass in our cities is no better off than they were.

Next item ... The State Dept, the Justice Dept, and the FBI all fall under his command. All of Hillary Clinton's corrupt activities have occurred on his watch. We have learned through all this that we are no longer a nation governed by the rule of law. Justice is not blind. People in high places are not citizens; they are royalty, untouchable. I think this is a disgrace.

Next item ... We are releasing dangerous terrorists from Guantanamo Bay. Many of them have quickly gone back to jihad. We have killed some of them since their release. I guess that's the bright side. It's our "catch and release and kill" program.

On the positive side ...

Obama got bin Laden. Just recently he killed the new head of the Afghan taliban.

I am in agreement with the slow destruction of ISIS using local ground troops, air power, and a small footprint of Special Forces to train and assist. I oppose a U.S.-led ground war. Our young people in the military don't deserve to die for any of those countries, and, quite frankly, our country is not worthy of their blood either. Right now, we are not a country that wants to win wars, so we do not possess the moral right to demand their blood in some dusty hellhole for the sake of some nebulous outcome.

And finally ... Unlike many of my conservative friends, I do not believe Obama is a bad man in his heart. He has many faults on the political side that I have spoken of above. I think he has some character faults like all people do. Some of them - especially his handling of the Clinton problem recently - are glaring. But outside of the politics, I don't see an evil person as some of his detractors do. So with that as a premise, I will say that I believe Hillary Clinton will become our next president. But if I had a choice of only Hillary or Obama, I would choose Obama, as I believe HC has no redeeming qualities. Zero. I don't believe there is any real humanity in HC. I think she will turn out to be the worst president in our entire history. So I give Obama a little "plus" on the personal character side.

Overall grade ... I'll give Obama a D+, reluctantly. Maybe a C-, but that is being generous. Either way, not very good, but not the worst. The worst is coming.

 

Terrible? Nothing like Trump or Clinton will be whomever wins. I think in the grand scheme of thing, a historical perspective Obama will be rated as below average. Somewhere around 25-30 out of the 44 presidents we had. Of the presidents I personally experienced, that goes back to Eisenhower, I was born right after WWII and was too young to have personally experienced Truman. Obama is ahead of Ford and Carter, to be sure. Probably sitting along side Bush the second or G.W. Bush.

That's not a ringing endorsement, but terrible, no. I think way too many people determine who was a good president or a bad president based solely on the R or D next to his name. I think that is wrong. I do know I would rather have Obama serving a third term than the prospect of having either Trump or Hillary Clinton sitting in the Oval Office. But this is me.

 

50 things Barack Obama has done wrong

 

The hate filled anti-American sheeple persist in their lies against President Obama who has gone a long way to reverse the mess created by their hero traitor Bush.

GOD BLESS THE USA!

 

What? Are you hard of reading? What recession am I blaming Obama for?

You blind sheep can't even get your arguments right.

 

Obama wasn't a horrible President, he upheld a horrible system that was/is the status quo of more wars, bad trade deals, and zero incentive to change things from the bully pulpit/executive authority. His appointments and the people he surrounds himself are the wealthy elite.

 

Obama = EXCELLENT President and the right wingers know it but hate him for being that way.

 

Misread your post. My bad.

 

As we have seen several times on this forum, some right wingers actually believe the economy was better than traitor Bush's Great Recession than it is today under the superior administration of President Obama.

Laughable!

 

Sorry for my outburst. I'm stuck in Europe and I got my cell phone stolen

 

Obama # 1 !