Obama's record of kept and broken promises
31 promises kept, of which 20 expand government power and 6 of which make it smaller, more transparent, or more accountable, and 5 are neutral.
6 promises broken, 5 of which would have limited presidential power, provided tax breaks, or more transparency or accountability to federal government, and one of which was symbolic (recognizing the Armenian genocide).
No promises broken which expand government power.
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6 comments:
Not bad, especially the conclusion:
“even when you assume the positions of left-of-center, big government Obama-the-candidate as your baseline, Obama-the-president comes up short.”
What president in our history did not come up short for someone or some group of people in various ways. Name one who was perfect for all...
Karina:
I think that's the wrong measure. The measure should be, which presidents governed well in accordance with the Constitution.
Certainly none have been perfect, but the presidents of the 20th and 21st centuries haven't been anywhere close.
I think Obama's certainly far better than Bush Jr. so far, but that's setting the bar way too low. We had a lot of far better presidents early in the country's history, and Washington was perhaps the best.
More recently, Harding is unfairly underrated.
I totally agree with JL on "The measure should be, which presidents governed well in accordance with the Constitution."
Harding was indeed under-rated, as was Coolidge, since both of them were non-interventionists and allowed the economy to recover on its own, giving the "roaring 20s". Hoover and FDR were big interventionists, resulting in the Great Depression and then prolonging it.
GWB deserves much censure for throwing America into debt. I fail to see how Barack "GM-Boss-in-Chief" Obama is better when he quadrupled this debt.
"You'll remember the stimulus plan had to be passed without a second's delay or we would see 8.7 percent unemployment. We're almost at 10." --columnist David Harsanyi
Fund manager Cliff Asness clearly doesn't agree with JL about Obama, given that Obama spat on the rule of law to bully rightful creditors and benefit his political allies.
Glenn Greenwald has been doing a series of on-going posts documenting the disparity between Obama's campaign promises and his actions in office, too (e.g. defending Dick Cheney in court from law suits, invoking "states secrets", preventive detention, not releasing torture photos, arguing to the Supreme Court in favor of limiting DNA evidence access etc.)
BTW, what has happened to Obama's supposedly great economic advisers? They must know that going into trillions of dollars of debt is a disastrous idea.
It should have been obvious that Summmers is too much of a wimp to challenge his Master—just look at the way he grovelled in vain to the feminazis at Harvard for what JL rightly called an "overblown" issue.
Another conclusion: Obama is a bully at home and a coward overseas.
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