A gentle reminder...
There's been a lot of discussion the past week about it being President Obama's first 100 days in office.
However, before I grade Obama for this arbitrary and silly date, like his fucking warranty expires... (Which btw is another gratitous FDR reference because it came after his first 100 days of massive accomplishments. Yes, I'm an FDR fanboy.) ...I'd like to offer the audience this gentle reminder...
"George W. Bush inherited a robust economy, a budgetary surplus, a rested military, and, even after 9/11, a world largely at peace and well-disposed toward the United States. He handed off to his successor a recession, a massive deficit and debt, a stretched and exhausted military, two wars, and a world marked by pronounced anti-Americanism. I am hard-pressed to find another set of back-to-back presidential transitions in which so many of the basic features of the domestic and international landscapes changed so dramatically for the worse. The Iraq war of course cannot be blamed for all of this, but it absorbed a great deal of this country's resources and, as a consequence, contributed significantly to the deterioration of the absolute and relative position of the United States in the world. It is quite possible history will judge the war's greatest cost to be opportunity cost, the squandering by the United States of a rare and in many ways unprecedented opportunity to shape the world and the nature of international relations for decades to come. Instead, Iraq contributed to the emergence of a world in which power is more widely distributed than ever before and U.S. ability to shape this world much diminished."
I'm sorry...call it cliche, but this cannot be repeated enough. Yes, Clinton helped, but Dubya and the rest of the right fucked us. And this is where we are...so...that said...
All in all. I give him a B to a me being generous B+.
Foreign Affairs (A) - I'm pretty much completely satisfied and honestly, I'd give SoS Clinton an A+ for her performance.
Domestic Policy [Not including Economic Policy] (B+)
Arg...technical difficulties...to be continued later...
However, before I grade Obama for this arbitrary and silly date, like his fucking warranty expires... (Which btw is another gratitous FDR reference because it came after his first 100 days of massive accomplishments. Yes, I'm an FDR fanboy.) ...I'd like to offer the audience this gentle reminder...
"George W. Bush inherited a robust economy, a budgetary surplus, a rested military, and, even after 9/11, a world largely at peace and well-disposed toward the United States. He handed off to his successor a recession, a massive deficit and debt, a stretched and exhausted military, two wars, and a world marked by pronounced anti-Americanism. I am hard-pressed to find another set of back-to-back presidential transitions in which so many of the basic features of the domestic and international landscapes changed so dramatically for the worse. The Iraq war of course cannot be blamed for all of this, but it absorbed a great deal of this country's resources and, as a consequence, contributed significantly to the deterioration of the absolute and relative position of the United States in the world. It is quite possible history will judge the war's greatest cost to be opportunity cost, the squandering by the United States of a rare and in many ways unprecedented opportunity to shape the world and the nature of international relations for decades to come. Instead, Iraq contributed to the emergence of a world in which power is more widely distributed than ever before and U.S. ability to shape this world much diminished."
I'm sorry...call it cliche, but this cannot be repeated enough. Yes, Clinton helped, but Dubya and the rest of the right fucked us. And this is where we are...so...that said...
All in all. I give him a B to a me being generous B+.
Foreign Affairs (A) - I'm pretty much completely satisfied and honestly, I'd give SoS Clinton an A+ for her performance.
Domestic Policy [Not including Economic Policy] (B+)
Arg...technical difficulties...to be continued later...