The past few days I’ve been listening and/or watching many “pundits” analyze the recent elections with, seemingly, always an attempt to connect the results, one way or the other, to President Obama.  This just seems to be the way in America anymore.  Instead of focusing on getting it “right” regarding solutions to all of the problems President Obama inherited from the utterly incompetent Republicans before him, it seems everyone – including the members of Congress who are screwing things up so badly – already have an eye on the midterm elections of 2010 and the Presidential election in 2012.  I keep wondering, “When will we allow (and expect) our leaders to perform without always having an eye on the next election?”

It doesn’t take a lot of thought or research to see the folly in the present way of “doing business.”  I’m not wanting my thoughts tonight to drift into an extensive discussion of the health care debate presently “raging.” but just the thought that the insurance industry is spending over one million dollars PER DAY to defeat reform, should be the main topic of discussion regarding this legislation, in my view.  This is open BRIBERY of our elected officials – and we, the voters, seem all too willing to accept it as “business as usual.”  This is disgusting to me.  Where do people think all this money is going?  And, why isn’t there more discussion as to the FACT that if the health care industry can spend a half a BILLION dollars to prevent reform – THEY’RE MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY?  In all of this: the health care debate, the virtual ignoring of two occupations costing the US billions EACH WEEK, Congressional leaders standing on the Capital steps with “birthers” and “deathers” carrying racist signs regarding our President calling for “revolution,” and a media that seems totally focused on creating as much division in our country as possible (creates ratings I guess) I’ve listened in the past few days to one “report card” after another on our President’s performance in his first TEN MONTHS in office.

So, I’ve decided to give my own “report card” on our President (the first President I’ve enthusiastically voted for in my adult lifetime – I’ve been following politics since the days of JFK – and voting since the first term of Richard Nixon).  I’m a sixth grade school teacher and in our school district progress reports give the teachers the following options for mid-term grades: doing excellent work, doing good work, doing adequate work, needs to improve, may fail, is likely to fail.  I’m going to use the same criterion in weighing in on Obama’s performance thus far in his Presidency.  For most teachers these categories align sequentially with the A,B,C,D,F grades that are given at the end of the term.  For me, however, the category “needs to improve” can apply to any student who I feel isn’t working up to their ability level.  In other words a student could end the term with an “A” in my classroom and still get a “needs to improve” as a progress report “grade.”  That being said, it might be fairly obvious that my grade for President Obama up to this point would be “needs to improve.”

I’ve consciously tried, of late, to focus my criticisms on this site as much toward Republicans as I can, although I’ve been clear since before Obama took office that I would not be a “rubber stamp” as the Republicans were – to all our detriment – during the Bush/Cheney administration.  There is no doubt in my mind that Obama was the FAR BETTER CHOICE during the previous election – can you even imagine Sarah Palin as Vice President, a heart beat from the Oval office (with a President having a history of cancer and being in his mid-seventies)? – and I, for one, am adamant that I want our President to succeed (in all honesty, I wanted Bush to succeed – simply put, HE DIDN’T).  Additionally, most of what Obama says and much of what he’s trying to do I heartily endorse.  However, so far, President Obama seems far more the “consummate politician” as opposed to the courageous statesman that I was hoping for when I voted for him.  I don’t in any way want to be “piling on” with Republicans who are opposed to EVERYTHING Obama does, I just feel there are some things that should be “going down” differently.

I “get” him trying to be the President of “all Americans” as he put it on the evening of his election.  I just think he’s trying too hard to appeal to the moderates out there (often times, I put myself in that category).  From a political point of view that may be the less risky path if getting re-elected is your main goal, and the reality is that the Republican party is imploding right before our eyes – possibly allowing Obama to feel more comfortable in looking away from those of us in his “base” who were expecting a clean break from the “atrocities” of the Bush/Cheney vendetta on America, but I expected our President to fulfill his promises – even though, in America, we’ve come to expect politicians not to fulfill their promises – this was part of the “change” I thought I could believe in.  In my humble opinion, that’s not necessarily happening, which is why I give him a very cautious grade.

I’ve already pointed out on this site that Obama’s refusal to allow investigations of the criminal behavior of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzales/Rove/Addington and others is a “deal breaker” for me.  That is, I’ve stopped sending money to Obama and I’m not intending to vote for him (although I continue to strongly “root” for his success).  I believe this is a MONSTROUS mistake which will have lasting NEGATIVE effect on this nation in the years ahead.  In essence, President Obama has – by “looking ahead” – endorsed the position Nixon took after the Watergate breakins that “if the President does it, it must be legal.”  I have no idea how a constitutional scholar could come to that conclusion, but he’s even managed to stave off investigations in the Senate from Leahy’s judicial committee and in the House from John Conyers judicial committee.  The end result is that our former President and his VP both ADMITTED TO AUTHORIZING TORTURE on national TV and have been essentially “enabled” by Obama’s decision.  Just writing about this makes me sick to my stomach.  The last time I was solicited for money I wrote a handwritten 3 page letter to the President pointing out my frustration with this action on his part and, of course, I’ll get no response and they will continue with the attitude that “who else would he vote for, a Republican? I don’t think so.

Well, they’re correct that I won’t vote for a Republican under the present and forseeable future of that party, but I believe they are taking a calculated risk that enough Democratic leaning independents (like myself) won’t “abandon ship” to cause them to lose in 2012.  As I stated earlier, TOTAL POLITICS! The RIGHT thing to do would be to honor our legal system, our constitution, his pledge to uphold the constitution when taking the oath of office, the supposed FACT this is a nation of laws and not men, and his PLEDGE in the campaign that if there is evidence of lawbreaking there would be justice and that “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW” in America.  I’ve stated this before several times on this site, but if Obama’s “looking forward and not backward” precedent was applied to all Americans there would never be a person convicted of a crime again in this nation.  YOU HAVE TO LOOK BACK – because the investigation HAS TO TAKE PLACE AFTER the crime has been committed.  And, President Obama’s reluctance to do this makes me wonder what is HE authorizing?  I’ve heard that “rendition” is still an accepted part of his administration.  Well, all that means is “enemy combatants” are being tortured in other countries and by non-Americans.  The result is the same.  And, what about the wiretapping policy of Bush?  President Obama’s Justice Department is defending the Bush position in Court.  Is it possible that he’s continuing the data mining of our phone calls and emails that was going on during the Bush years?  He voted for the FISA legislation which allowed the Telecoms to get away with enabling the FISA abuses of the Bush administration and we haven’t seen his promised action to “fix” that bill yet, either.

There’s another area that I believe is a vulnerability for Obama.  Concerning the famous saying “it’s the economy, stupid” in regard to what wins and loses elections I’m very concerned about some of the direction I’ve seen from the Obama administration regarding the economy.  As I stated at the time, I felt the “stimulus bill” was flawed from the beginning because it was too small (considering the gravity of the situation when Obama took office) and there were unnecessary tax cuts for those of us who still had jobs with not nearly enough money designated for infrastructure rebuilding – ie job creation.  And, members of Obama’s administration are talking about the lagging job market in the “SAME OLD” terms I’ve been listening to for the past 50 years – every time there’s a recession.  This leads me to believe that we are getting more of the same as far as the economy is concerned.  To me, Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers don’t represent the “change we can believe in.”  I realize the TARP bailout program for the banks was initiated under Bush and the problem was totally exacerbated by Bush’s economic nightmare which was imposed on us for eight years, but I’ve seen little to make me believe there’s going to be actual reeling in of Wall Street with tight regulations of the financial institutions who threatened our economy and very likely will do so again.  The bankers on Wall Street, from what I’ve observed, have put an exclamation point on the FACT that their bonuses and exhorbitant salaries are far more important to them than the economic health of this nation.

I honestly expected President Obama to have the courage to revoke the RIDICULOUS Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in this nation which fueled the huge deficits of the previous 8 years, upon taking the reins of the government.  Instead, it appears he’s going to allow them to expire – TAKING THE EASY, NON CONTROVERSIAL WAY OUT!  To me, that’s a symptom of the problem.  And, everyone knows that the corporations of America are shielding TRILLIONS of dollars from taxes in places like the Cayman Islands where bankers conspire with rich Americans to cheat our tax system out of BILLIONS UPON BILLIONS of dollars – for pure greed!  These corporations are making obscene profits, they are benefitting the MOST from our government’s services – in some instances receiving millions or billions in government subsidies, yet they do everything in their power to avoid paying their “FAIR SHARE” in taxes.  Of course, most of these corporations are heavily indebting the Republicans in Congress who continue to rail against taxes as their main source of support in continuing this reverse Robin Hood policy, but I’ve seen little from Obama’s administration aimed at correcting this HUGE problem!  (remember, the deficit was 1.4 TRILLION dollars that Obama inherited – if that doesn’t give him the grounds to go after these “tax havens” it will never happen)  Unless something changes drastically, the stranglehold on our government by the “multi-national” corporations won’t end any time soon.

Finally, the occupations of Iraq and Afganistan.  Recently, I’ve written several posts regarding Obama’s impending decision on the “course of action” for Afganistan.  There can be no doubt that Afganistan/Pakistan is the BIGGEST problem left for Obama to solve by the Bush administration.  Essentially, Bush/Cheney combined ignorance with ignoring to leave Afganistan as a borderline “failed state” with a population who are sick of Americans occupying their country and a government that is corrupt and dependent on the drug trade for survival.  On top of that, both the Taliban and al Qaeda are “alive and well” operating out of Pakistan and reconstituted, to a significant degree, from the funds Bush/Cheney sent to Pakistan propping up Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator who was a known supporter of both the Taliban and al Qaeda prior to (and after) 9/11.  While I believe we would be better off getting ALL our troops out of both Afganistan and Iraq, I’m not even hopeful at this point.  I believe President Obama will accede to the wishes of the Generals who want an additional 40,000 troops in Afganistan (at least partially) and, by the time Obama’s most ardent supporters get their focus back on Iraq, I believe he could lose a lot of support from both fiascos.

Not only are our troops still in Iraq, at essentially the pre “surge” levels, but Obama has taken the same approach to Iraq that he took to the tax cuts.  He’s simply letting Bush’s policies “play out.”  With the exception that Obama’s planning on a force of upwards of 75,000 “non-combat” troops in Iraq INDEFINITELY!  This is close to as much of a deal breaker as the “looking forward” policy is for me.  One of the main reasons I voted for President Obama was that he assured me he would bring ALL THE TROOPS home from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.  Now, he’s conveniently “honoring” the troop removal agreement Bush/Cheney made with the Iraqi’s which will get the troops out by, supposedly, the end of August of 2010.  Well, first of all, that will be 20 months – which, I suppose, would be grudgingly acceptable, IF ALL THE TROOPS WERE COMING HOME.  But, they’re not.  In fact, less than half of them are coming home.  If you read Thomas Rick’s Book “The Gamble” you will understand that our Generals feel it will take a generation to appease the “rift” between the Shia and Sunni which will “explode” if we remove all our troops – so, Obama is planning to label about 75,000 of our troops as “non-combat” so that he can claim “all of our combat troops have been removed.”  This disgusts me, and I truly hope that I have this one wrong – but, everything I can find tells me this is the best we can hope for.  This is disengenuous at best.   Obama is risking his relationship with a large number of his base on his Iraq/Afganistan continuance of the Bush policies.  He acts like he doesn’t want confrontation with the people who we voted him into office to confront!

In summary, President Obama has attempted to avoid conflict by enabling the criminal activity of the Bush administration to go without investigation, he’s supporting Bush/Cheney policies (wiretapping, state’s secrets) in court, he watered down the stimulus package for three Republican votes at the expense of millions of infrastructure jobs, he chose to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire instead of the courageous stand of repealing them, he hasn’t shown much “backbone” in holding multi-national corporations accountable for their tax-cheating and there hasn’t been much in the form of Wall Street regulation, he’s continuing the Bush policy in Iraq and he’s probably going to succumb to the wishes of his Generals in Afganistan who want an Iraq-like “surge.”  For me, despite his attempts to get a watered down health care bill through Congress (like with the stimulus bill, seemingly more interest in one Republican vote than focusing on the ideals of his own party) and some other promising decisions he’s made which put him WAY ABOVE Bush or any alternative the Republicans might offer, the best grade I can give Obama is “Needs to improve.”  At some point I’m hoping Obama will make courageous stands on progressive principles instead of continuing the “EASY WAY OUT” approach he’s taken in his first 10 months.  In my view, his rhetoric far exceeds his actions!