Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Having discussed the Republican candidates, I want to discuss about the performance of Obama during these 3 years. Obviously no president is liked by all people. If you get 55% of the votes in an reelection then things really had gone well for you. Obama has been criticized by the right and the left. He is not so popular with the independents either. I don't agree with a lot of things he has done. But I would not be so critical of him until I have examined how he compared with other recent presidents. So I will go over the presidents from the time I was in college to the present and see how Obama stacks up with them.

Gerald Ford was a Michigan man so obviously he was a very smart and great man. Of course he was not elected to office and sort of fell into the job. I think this helped his legacy and hurt his chance to get elected against Carter. By replacing Nixon, Ford helped the country get back to normalcy. But by pardoning Nixon, many people were upset and him. They felt he must had a deal with Nixon and that's how he got the job in the first place. So he lost to Carter. Since his stay in office was so short, he basically got an incomplete grade from me.

In many ways Obama is more like Jimmy Carter than others. Of course, Obama would not want the same fate as Carter; an unpopular one termer. Both Carter and Obama are intellectuals, Carter having graduated high in his Naval Academy class. But both tend to over think things. Instead of like Reagan, who acted with confidence, Carter and Obama may seem indecisive at times. Both were dealt bad hands to begin with. Carter faced an energy crisis that hurt the nation's confidence. Obviously Carter did not create the oil crisis. But long gas lines and inflation drove Carter out of office. He also had to face the Iran hostage crisis. When he sent in a rescue mission, it failed miserably. At least Obama killed bin Laden. The one big accomplishment of Carter was bringing Egypt and Israel together. But that was not enough, economy will trump foreign policy any time. By the time Carter left office his approval rating was in the 30s. But as a private citizen, he did great things. This is because as a private person, he can just do what he thinks is good for other people and the world. In retrospect Carter was ahead of his time. When the energy crisis occurred, Carter said that our future depends on NOT depending on foreign oil. He installed solar panels on the White House roof and wore sweaters and turn down the heat. All these things we should have followed up on from the 1970s. As president, the decisions are more complicated, and as I said, Carter over thought.

The opposite may be true of Ronald Reagan. He knew he wanted to defeat the communists and restore American's image as the most powerful. To that end he built up the military. He believed in trickle down economics and to that end he cut taxes. He did not over think, he just acted. He was not a hard sell to Americans in the 80s. Doing opposite of Carter seemed like the right thing to do. Solar panels were taken down from the White House to show that America still has the oil. Taxes were cut since the economy was doing poorly with high taxes. Things did turn around. But was it due to Reagan's policy or just the cycle of the economy? Unemployment was over 10% in 82 and 83, higher than the 7.1% when he took office in 1980. By 1984 election, it had gone down to 7.5% and so with the improvement, Reagan was reelected. There was the stock market crash in 1987 which was attributed to computer trading, forerunner of derivatives today. There was the savings and loan scandal that required a big taxpayer bailout. So two lessons we never learned from the 1980s-poor regulations of securities trading and poor oversight of loans by institutions. As the old saying goes, history does repeat itself. But to the Republicans, Reagan is their god. Every candidate uses his name today. But was it all good back then?

Certainly it was not all good for the elder George Bush. While one may argue that the tax cut helped the economy in the early and mid 80s, it eventually led to huge budget deficit in the Bush years. This forced Bush to go back to his promise of no new taxes. Once again this demonstrates how economics trump foreign policy. Bush had just win the first Gulf war and people expected him to win reelection easily. But the deficit and the eventual broken promise on taxes killed Bush's chance for a second term.

If Reagan is the Republican's god, then Clinton is the Democrat's god. In many ways Clinton was very lucky. Bush having to raise taxes opened a door for Clinton to step in. Over zealous effort by Gingrich led Republicans led to a government shut down helped Clinton with reelection. It is also true that the rise of the computer technology and the internet started a whole slate of profitable businesses helped the economy immensely while Clinton was in office. So Clinton was very lucky. But he was also very talented. When his health initiative did not work, he dumped it. When the Republicans won big in the midterm election of 94, he became much more moderate in his policies, even reforming welfare with the Republicans. In a word, Clinton was nimble. He had his failings, like Somalia. He certainly had personal failings but he managed to get out of jam. People say that when he talks to you, he makes you feel that you are the most important person in the room. It is a great person skill even though it is fake.

The young Bush was in over his head. That is why he had Cheney as his mentor. He really had no understanding of the world and history and he took most of his advice from neocons like Wolfowitz who advocated regime change in Iraq and building democracy in the Middle East. They achieved regime change at a cost of thousands of American lives plus hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. It took our eyes off bin Laden and Afghanistan. The war cost us 800 billion dollars. A nice sum for the deficit, don't you think? Speaking of deficit, the Bush tax cut didn't help it, did it? I don't blame the depression on Bush. This was mostly the doing of Wall Streets, banks and insurance companies. But certainly his regulations and economic plans did not help.

So how does Obama rate in comparison to these people. As I said he over thinks. For example, I applaud his health plan effort. He believed that Clinton's plan failed because Clinton got no support from the insurance industry and Republicans. Obama tried to get them on board. But ultimately they have no interest in helping him. His concessions like no public option only angered his base. The truth is most economic issues are beyond his control. I think most economists agree that he had to follow Bush's plan and stimulate the economy. He had to save General Motors and the big banks. For the most part he succeeded but the economy is still in bad shape. But is it worse than 3 years into Reagan's presidency? From what I remember, no. The difference is that Reagan did opposite of Carter whereas Obama did pretty much the same as Bush. Even his treasury secretary Geithner is a protege of O'Neil, the treasury secretary under Bush. So to the public Reagan was making improvements like FDR whereas Obama was floundering. As good as an orator as Obama is, he has not given the public a clear vision of what he is trying to do. Reagan told us he was going to beat the Russians. He said the trickle down effect will raise all of us. Whether any of these were true or not, it inspired the public. Obama has not done that.

I think foreign policies wise, Obama has done pretty much what I expected him to do. Having lived abroad, he understands that we can no longer just throw our power around. We have to show others that we are a benign world leader. We are not out to get Muslims nor are we trying to stop China from rising. This does not mean he is going around apologizing for the U.S. as his critics have pointed out. He is in fact helping the U.S. win more friends abroad and this will be vital for our security in the future.

It is too early to know if Obama will be considered a good president. It is too early to tell if he will get a second term. But comparing him with the recent presidents, I see him stronger than others in certain areas and weaker in others. As I mentioned one of his weakness is over thinking. That does not bother me much since I tend to be that way. Perhaps you can tell that is the case after reading this lengthy blog.