re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Cameron Sawyer, Russia)

When commenting Nigel Jones’s post of 4 November, JE wrote:

Anyone willing to come to President Obama’s defense?

Cameron Sawyer responds:

Certainly, I am willing to give a somewhat milder assessment, also from a right-wing perspective.

Nigel brings up some valid criticism, but his overall view is much colored by an emotional view.

He says that Obama has mostly engaged in “prolonged dithering,” rather than accomplishing anything. I can’t really agree with this. The change in the direction of our foreign policy was rather decisive and rather quick, and very much welcome. The level of productiveness of work with other countries has been increased many-fold. A decision has been made about Iraq, which was surely the biggest foreign policy issue we have, and I think the decision made is probably the best of a bad menu of choices. A decision has also been made about Afghanistan–and I agree with Nigel that this one was probably wrong, but we can’t accuse him of dithering.

The economic crisis has been managed reasonably well by almost all accounts. Pumping tons of money into the economy by the state is the only plan anyone has, and it seems to have helped. We have avoided economic collapse. We do not have the inflation which skeptics, including myself, predicted. The debt is awful, but it is less than the average debt of Western European countries, as a proportion of GDP.

The socialization of medicine, which is the pet project of the Democrats, is something I am passionately opposed to, so I am happy that this has failed so far. But other than disagreeing with the policy, I can’t blame the administration too much for this. It has been done in a serious-minded and intelligent way, which is one reason why it is failing. Resort has not been made to the whole toolbox of propaganda and manipulation, and for this I respect the Obama administration.

Concerning scandals, mentioned by JE: this is not actually a trivial issue. The remarkable lack of scandals in the Obama administration is just a sign of the high quality of management and teamwork in the Obama administration. It forms a stark contrast to the awful Clinton administration, which was scandal-ridden exactly because it was so poorly run and staffed by so many questionable characters (starting with the then-president and his odious wife). The Obama administration is a real class act in comparison, and in fact in absolute terms as well. I don’t agree, by and large, with its domestic policies, but that fact does not make Obama, in my eyes, a “Bozo.”