The last 365 days of GOVERNING

[underpants]

The American people haven't seen anyone actually governing since the Impeachment nonsense started over 11 years ago.
They also must be very surprised to see what a legislature (warts and all) actually looks like.

A short list

* Passing the "largest" economic stimulus bill in American history (which all reasonable assessments have judged as successful).
* Ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and abolishing "enhanced interrogation techniques."
* Setting a fixed timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
* Ordering 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and enlisting, with modest new assistance, European allies in a new multi-layered strategy there and in Pakistan.
* "Returning science to its rightful place" by lifting the Bush restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research.
* Signing laws to expand children's health insurance (financed by a 61-cent per pack increase in the federal cigarette tax the adviser did not tout).
* Signing a law meant to improve the ability of women who allege pay discrimination to sue their employer.
* Diminishing the role of lobbyists in the White House
* "Forge a meaningful statement from the United Nations" criticizing North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile.
* Lifting travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans who seek to travel more frequently to the island and send more US currency to their immediate family.
* Nominated the first Latina to the US Supreme Court
* Engaging world leaders in Europe, Turkey, Latin American and the Caribbean with "strength and humility."


This list doesn't include:
Getting China and India, at least, to the table on climate control (something conservatives and the MSM said would never happen)
Cash for Clunkers worked exactly as designed and was very successful
Won the Nobel Prize for Peace


you can add others as you see fit

[Ken Burch]

1. I acknowledge most of the achievements

However, the peace prize thing became eternally meaningless after the Afghanistan escalation was announced. You can't say your for peace and then intensify what you know is an unwinnable war(especially when you're only backing that war to "look tough".)

[tekisui]

2. Ordering an additional 35,000 troops, plus 50,000 or so more

private contractors to Afghanistan.

Drastic increase in use of drone strikes in Pakistan.

[underpants]

4. Yeah that was great

and LONG overdue

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. pity the bright lights have confused & distracted you.

Half of those are debatable, or worse. The other half? Nobel prize? That's a successful executive decision? give me a break.

[timeforpeace]

5. Nothing learned.

[underpants]

9. Well it was going to be an accomplishments thread

but I made the title more succinct

but thanks for the highbrow critique

[blondeatlast]

6. Hilda solis, very pro-labor for Sec. of Labor and his (stalled by the obstrructionist RRReps)

very pro-Union NLRB picks:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100201/hill_iglitzin

[underpants]

8. Remember the big old mean fight they were going to put up against Sibelius?

....and then H1N1 hit and she was confirmed within 2 days

Same thing here

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Nevermind the know-nothings.

Fuck 'em.

[NYC_SKP]

10. It's an estimable first year for our new guy.

But a lot of people are going to disagree, they're going to call Obama a corporatist warmonger.

They think they're "his base", which is so wrong that I have to laugh to keep from crying.

They think, like Rush Limbaugh, et al, that the Brown win was proof of failure of the administration.

Some even think that it's their fault that Brown won (for not pushing Obama harder for progressive ideals).

The truth is that the base is made up of people like the family that runs the independent grocery store down the street.

And the guys who mounted my tires today and aligned my front end.

And the school teachers I had to email today.

Obama has done a great deal in this one year, Maddow had a great piece on it a week ago, maybe longer.

The president, with a four year term, did just what I'd expect and not the things some others had hoped for.

He did not start off from the left, pushing from the gate for the most progressive objectives, making enemies of the center and the right, and setting up his next three years for failure.

He did not do that.

He started by giving bipartisanship a chance (even if he didn't expect results) so that he can't be painted into a corner.

He gave the 60 Democrats in the senate a chance to behave like Democrats, (even if he didn't expect them to), and they failed.

We are all richer for the year-one strategy, the president's point of departure.

We are the wiser, he is the stronger, and getting these many (though not everyone's favorite) things done is better by far...

...than having tried and failed in year one to pass ambitious progressive policies that would have made him a laughing stock.

:rantoff:

:donut:

:patriot:

[underpants]

11. Didn't sound like a rant to me

:patriot

[regnaD kciN]

13. +1

:applause:

[NYC_SKP]

14. Thanks!

thanks for reading the whole thing and for your reply!

:toast:

[regnaD kciN]

12. But...but...but...

...isn't Obama a failure, a corporate stooge, and a traitor to the progressive movement who hasn't done a single thing to fulfill his promises since being elected?

:sarcasm:

[boston bean]

15. Geithner, Summers, Bernanke, Gates........

[azmouse]

16. Geez... is that all?

Impressive for being just the short list.

:patriot: GObama!