Is A Non-Partisan Critique Of President Obama Possible?

Answer: Yes, Overwhelmingly So.

It does not take a partisan to notice glaring deficiencies in President Barack Obama's leadership. Comparisons and contrasts between Obama and Bush are all too common these days. Such exercises are quite limited in their effectiveness because they take the measure of leaders from opposing parties. Democrats try to deflect criticism of their hero by saying things like, "Bush did it too" or "Obama has had to clean up Bush's mess." From the defensive, Republicans are compelled to respond with something like, "At least Bush didn't...(fill in the blank)" or "Ronald Reagan would have...(fill in the blank)." The net result is that undecided observers are sitting back watching two teams throw their own heroes in each others' faces.


Partisan posturing is business as usual; it has nothing to do with the president's declining strength with the electorate. There are deeper reasons why President Obama's re-election chances are in jeopardy. The leading national polls have the president and his challenger at a dead-heat, with Republican candidate Mitt Romney gaining ground among groups the Democrats have always considered safely in their pocket, especially single women. For an incumbent president to be neck-and-neck with his challenger by July of an election year is a portent of defeat for the sitting president. After all, President Jimmy Carter was ahead of Ronald Reagan this time in 1980, and he still lost in November. 

Why is President Obama's re-election in trouble? The simplest answer is that no president in living memory has been re-elected with unemployment above eight percent.  When this is combined with growing tensions in the Middle East (with Iran threatening to spike oil prices by closing the Strait of Hormuz) and an ever-aggressive China, which has recently stolen military secrets by hacking into the Pentagon's computer systems (to name a few examples in which the public perception of the president's leadership is coming to be seen as lacking) a landslide November defeat for President Obama is not implausible at this point in the campaign season. This is not to mention the hotly controversial health care reform -which stands as the president's most famous achievement - an achievement which will likely be repealed if the Republicans recapture the presidency and a majority in the U.S. Senate this November, regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding it.


Many voters may not understand abstract political concepts like "conservatism" or "liberalism", but they know the difference between success and failure when they see it. Presidents usually accomplish more in their first (not their second) term. It is one thing to try and measure how President Obama's leadership stacks up against his Republican predecessors. Yet, as I mentioned above, to do so can easily be tarnished with charges of partisan bias. But what happens when President Obama's leadership is measured up against his Democratic presidential predecessors, chiefly, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK)? Since FDR's unwavering belief in the use of government to better the social welfare of the people bares closer relation to Obama's ideology, let us begin with his accomplishments.  


During the Great Depression, FDR (years in office 1933 - 1945) restored confidence in the nation's banking system by ensuring depositors' money through the creation of F.D.I.C (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). Thanks to this reform, we can all feel safe that the money we put in the bank does not get wiped out when the bank spends it. FDR created several million "shovel-ready" jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and several other agencies. He created four million jobs between the fall and spring of 1934 - 1935 alone! Think of all the family members those jobs saved from starvation in that term! 

After being confronted with the failure of his "stimulus" programs, President Obama laughingly joked, "Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we thought." Over the years, FDR's critics claim that he failed to bring unemployment below single-digits until the onset of the Second World War. Nevertheless, he brought it down from 25 per cent to the neighborhood of 12 per cent, and the millions employed by the relief agencies were counted in that figure. If we exclude them, biographers Jean Edward Smith and Conrad Black tell us, real unemployment may have been as low as 6 per cent! There was a reason FDR was re-elected to the presidency three more times (each time receiving a vote by the future Republican president, Ronald Reagan).


FDR's foreign policy achievements include victory of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the Second World War and the sponsoring of the Bretton Woods agreement, which tied the world's major currencies to the U.S. dollar. This made America the world's largest creditor nation for nearly thirty years following the death of FDR. For those who want to point out that FDR had twelve years to accomplish these things, it must be pointed out that in JFK's presidency (1961 -1963: totaling around two years and eleven months), taxes were cut; the economy turned around from a recession; and nuclear war with the Soviet Union over Cuba was averted. 

After nearly four years, President Obama presides over a stagnant economy; a public in turmoil over the uncertainties unleashed by his health care reform; and few foreign policy achievements aside from the killing of top Al-Qaeda leaders (resulting from intelligence-gathering methods the president has staunchly opposed). Furthermore, many Americans do not see how the president's policy of toppling Libya's Muammar Qadaffi has benefited American interests.


In sum, a non-partisan observer with an eye for historical analogies to the present, has to look hard to find a solid record of major, positive achievement in President Obama's first term. This observer would be very interested in being proven wrong - an honest observer would have it no other way.




Jason A.