Grading President Obama’s First Day

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In direct response to the astute political commentary from the editor of a fashion magazine, I’d like to point out a few things that your average fashion guru might not realize (now, please don’t tell me I can’t wear white sneakers before Easter-or is it after?).

1. Halting the military tribunal process at Guantánamo Bay.
Great idea if all you want to do is make the editor of Vanity Fair happy, but stupid in every other respect. Now Obama’s only got 4 choices: First he can restart the tribunals in 4 months. Second he can have all these guys go through civilian courts in which case they automatically go free because no soldier read them Miranda on the battlefields of Afghanistan, habeus corpus, and in some cases “harsh interrogations.” Third, he can have em shot for being enemy combatants w out uniforms (the reason most insurgents traditionally wear at least a bandanna or something). Lastly, he can admit he fubar’d on day one and restart the tribunals. The option of sending them to another country has been tried and failed.
D-

2. Phoning Arab leaders to discuss the Mideast situation.
This was not exactly a brave or inspiring thing to do: to call all the people who supported Israel’s incursion into Gaza, but-again-it makes an ill-informed propagandist like the editor of Vanity Fair magazine happy. To have really made a difference, Mr Obama would have had to call leaders in Syria, Iran, and Hamas, but he didn’t.
D

3. Freezing salaries for senior White House staffers and implementing semi-strict guidelines to stop the K Street revolving door.
Hardly a big deal since Politico and The Hill both reported that as many as half of the Obama Administration has worked on K Street. This is like closing the gate to the chicken pen after letting in a few hundred fox.
F

4. Embracing openness and an end to “secrecy.”
Great job! Does this mean we get to find out who his campaign donors were? $600 of his $700million dollars was made in either online or unreported donations under $200. Transparency would provide that list. Secrecy means that no one in the United States knows who paid for their President/who their President owes favors.
F

5. Meeting with top military advisers to plan the Iraq drawdown and the reboot of the Afghanistan war.
President Obama did this in December, and the generals told him the 16-month withdrawal of combat brigades was impossible unless many of the combat brigades were re-described as “security units.” NYT had the article. I might have a link. It was funny. To think, President Obama campaigned on this idea of ending the war in Iraq in 16 months. Then even his own advisors said that can’t be done (you just can’t move 16 brigades that fast w/out abandoning their equipment). So, he nuanced his claim to removing all the “combat brigades.” Then, during the transition, he met with the actual military leaders who know what’s going on, and Obama changed his claim again to STARTING in 16 months while leaving “security, logistics, training, and units to fight Al Queda.” Best part about that is it’s EXACTLY what President Bush proposed back in 2006-even before Democrats took office. Oh, but the editor of Vanity Fair thinks this is something new and exciting?
F

6. Convening his economic advisers to discuss the stimulus.
I remember a big press conference weeks ago where they supposedly did this. I also remember months (years?) ago where Obama said he was ready to lead on day one. This isn’t leading, it’s STARTING to lead after claiming to have started weeks/months earlier.
F

7. He re-took the oath of office because he (and the Chief Justice he voted against as a Senator) both flubbed it. Oddly enough, they flubbed it the second time by not using a Bible.
D

8. He was the first President in 56 years/14 inaugurations to ignore the American Legion Ball; a ball held in honor of living Medal of Honor recipients and packed with as many other decorated veterans as possible
F

9. He did nothing for Healthcare reform as he promised he would do on Day One
F

10. He gave a speech (amazingly similar to speeches from the hated George W Bush) calling Americans to unite once again, to national service, to end partisan bickering/opposition for opposition’s sake, and of the 2million people on the National Mall watching, no one picked up their own trash, and thousands boo’d and hissed like partisans at President Bush (something that has never happened before in an inauguration). Then they went around thumping their chests at victory, booing, vandalizing, and waving fists in the air rather than extending open hands as our leader suggested.

F

President Obama is failing

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What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

And they wondered why all the Karl Rove e-mails were lost. Not to mention all of Al Gore’s e-mails (and I have no idea if Judicial Watch ever got all the missing Clinton staff e-mails).

Expect a lot of circumventing of the Federal Records Act, most likely through a “shadow Obama staff” that is not on the official White House staff that keeps the “permanent campaign” alive. Can you spell .. D-N-C ?

And obama’s incoming team found no missing “O”s on White House computer keyboards unlike the “W”s that the Clinton kids (many of whom are now running Obama’s show) stole before checking out in 2001.

You and the Vanity Fair guy are sort of mirror images of each other: he would give Obama an ‘A’ for successfully buttoning his shirt, you would find a reason to give him an ‘F’ even if he magically balanced the budget. I can’t say that I’m totally objective either (who is?) but I still feel like a more balanced perspective is in order.
BTW that Vanity Fair guy clearly has a severe case of BDS – he’s supposed to be writing about Obama but ends up spending more than half his time on gratuitous (and often incorrect) slams on Bush and Cheney instead.

My take:
1) Halting the tribunals. Symbolically maybe nice, but for practical purposes this is kicking the can down the road four months and hoping he can figure out what to do with it in the meantime. Also, when one of the principal complaints is that people are being held without trial, and your answer is to … hold them without trial some more, reasonable people might say ‘huh’? Maybe he’ll do something more before four months is up. Until then, I give this a ‘C’.

2) Phoning Arab leaders. As Scott says suggests, the critical thing in the long run is how Obama deals with our enemies; calling our allies is sort of a gimme. Still, better this than totally ignoring the situation, and I wouldn’t expect Obama to be talking to Ahmadinejad on day 1 – that would send the wrong signal to our friends about what our priorities are. I’ll give him a ‘B’.

3) Salary freeze, lobbying restrictions. The salary freeze is pointless theater – the government just gave away about a trillion dollars, you expect to convince us you’re frugal by saving maybe $10 million a year (a generous estimate)? The lobbying restrictions look good on paper, but Obama’s team has so many insiders and Clinton retreads that they seem unlikely to have any effect. I give this a ‘D’.

4) Transparency. The ideas put forth here are actually really good; I wonder whether Obama has read Brin’s book on the transparent society. Of course it all comes down to followthrough, but on the first day we have to judge the proposals and not the execution. I’ll give him an ‘A’ for this one.

5) Iraq. Scott is right: Obama’s plan looks like a continuation of Bush’s, maybe with a few changes in detail or focus. Mr. Vanity Fair is too dense to realize this. On the other hand Scott somehow feels like this warrants an ‘F’ despite being a continuation of a policy we can assume he approved of. I say: too slow, too much wiggling to try and leave as many US soldiers in the Middle East for as long as possible. I’ll give him a ‘D’ even if my reasons are almost the opposite of Scott’s.

6) Retaking the oath of office. Seems reasonable. Contra Scott, a bible is not required (John Quincy Adams didn’t use one, feeling it went against the separation of Church and State). Hard to give someone an ‘A’ for doing something over though. No grade for just doing the obvious.

7) Meeting with his economic advisors. Well I should hope so – the economy should be his top priority. But without concrete proposals no grade should be assigned here either.

As for the American Legion ball and the inauguration speech … that was the day before.

Nice transperency on the re-oath as well…
No media was notified and the only picture taken was by the white house photographer.

Bbart, come back when you have a pair. We don’t need anymore gutless “republicans”.
I give him an F the first day. Running to the left will always get that grade from me.

Well, since a bible is not required at all, nor was the first oath which WAS taken on a Bible invalidated by the transposition of a couple words, I would have to say the “flub” in the retaking was retaking it AT ALL, as it just provides another piece of minutia for those who refuse to educate themselves to whine about.

Regarding the transparency issue: Really? You care about transparency now? Somehow I’m not surprised you want the names of all the private citizens who donated what they could to President Obama’s campaign. Would you like our home addresses and phone #s too? All so that you can make certain everything’s above board, I’m sure!

No cameras does not mean no media. Members of the press were present, playwithfire, flat out lying does not help your cause at all, especially when the truth is so easily looked up.

Using a Bible to swear an oath isn’t even Biblical. During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus specifically said to just let yes and no mean what they say, anything more than that is superfluous at best and perhaps even misleading.

Bbart, come back when you have a pair. We don’t need anymore gutless “republicans”.

We need as many Republicans as we can get, at least on election day. As for ‘having a pair’, I was unaware that pouring scorn on politicians on a blog was evidence of any virtue at all, least of all manliness. On a good day you could claim to be insightful and that’d be about it.

You’re probably right about that; to be honest I ignored most of the inauguration news (I read the text of Obama’s speech and a couple of news articles and that was about it). So my reasons for focusing solely on the first day in office, and not what went before, are mostly just that I don’t feel informed enough to comment on that. In particular I haven’t seen any video footage at all.

@Souris_Optique:

Addresses and ph#s not necessary, maybe you could just point out which one on howobamagotelected.com you are.

As far as the Lincoln Bible, he didn’t need it, he got all the hype and photo ops he wanted with that January 20. It’s probably now under that famous Obama bus, necessary reading material for Rev. Wright, we can only hope he reads it.

To bbartlog:
Hard Right is what we like to call your keyboard tough guy. When it comes to typing insults, tough talk and inane comments, no one does it like Hard Right. Plus I secretly think he’s online at either a mental hospital or prison. Regardless, he’s a lunatic with a big mouth so just ignore him.

Ron

It’s so much fun to watch Republicans dig up any ATOM of discord to raise themselves up, so thoroughly has the party been trashed and cast aside. Obama became president at noon on election day, swearing in or no swearing in, Bible or no Bible. No Bible on second swearing? Nope. They didn’t use that or any other work of fiction.

@dobbin:

Don’t get to cocky before you think it through. You just proved the man you voted for is no leader as you definately aren’t listening to him.

@Scott:

bbart, I liked your post, but I have to agree about giving an F for running away from his own party. Yeah, it was 2000000 booing people vs 42000 cops etc, but c’mon, if Obama wanted to actually end partisanship, he should have stood up and put a stop to the mocking and insulting of a partisan figurehead. By letting them boo and so forth he let them alienate the tens of millions of people who either like GWB or liked his policies. A leader would have risen.

Especially one who has draped the mantle of “change” and being a “new kind of politician” as Obama has. Right now, he has so much political capital among his supporters, there is so much messianic adoration, that policy issues aside, he could prove himself right as someone who wants to buck the system and do the uncoventional; to be the extraordinary, and not just the ordinary politician who talks a good talk, but doesn’t carry through.

I see bbart, you bash actual Conservatives, but I’m the bad guy for calling you on it. It is exactly because of wimps like you that the GOP finds itself in it’s current situation.

The criticism leveled at obama over his actions is 100% warranted. The fact you don’t understand that tells me you might as well be a dem.

Ron, little girls get over being embarrassed faster than you do.

To Hard Right:
What embarrassment? Oh you mean the embarrassment of you being a fellow conservative….why yes I’m still not over that. You are an embarrassment to all of humanity come to think of it.

And when is feeding time in the asylum? Don’t forget to take your meds so those voices in your head will stop you lunatic.

Your pal
Ron

Just to offer a couple corrections:

Bush’s people didn’t find the W’s missing from the keyboards. That story was made up. It turned out to be predictive of what the Bush administration would be like.

Obama didn’t ban lobbyists after hiring a bunch. What he did was prohibit lobbyists from working for agencies they lobbied thereby removing them from their networks, and departing staff will be prohibited from lobbying the administration, effectively ending their lobbying prospects.

I bust a GUT watching conservatives call for transparency on ridiculous, bullshit nonsense like photographers at the reswearing of the oath. HAA-ha-ha-HAAA! We’ve had eight years of the most monumental secrecy in U.S. presidential history. It’ll be great living in a country where we actually know where our vice-president is at all times! [Hint: at work for the people.] Imagine! Not having a Dark Lord monster who has to hide from the light of day. He went to Federal Court to keep us from learning what was happening in his oil company meetings! (One of you neocons tell me exactly why he had to do that. You won’t. ‘Cause there’s no good answer other than something based on money for oil company pals. See this space for the non-answer.) All y’all righties are officially required to shut UP about transparency after the insane secret dealings of the Bushies. We’re now headed back into the light, and away from the Dark Lord’s “I’m not in the Executive branch” machinations.

@Eric Ferguson:

@dobbin:

Following that leader you voted for? You appear to be lost.

Hey Missy you should work for FA….Wordsmith are you listening?

Good response!

Ron

Dobbin-The most monumental secrecy in Presidential history?; when compared to dem hero FDR, whose own VP Truman didn’t know a tenth of what had been going on during FDR’s Presidency prior to FDR’s death in 1945? BTW, George W Bush didn’t censor mail, or incarcertae hundreds of thousands of alleged enemy supporters (re: Japanese Italians and Germans in this country) like FDR and he didn’t try to pack the US Supreme Court to get his way ala FDR. The secrecy of George Bush also didn’t outstrip either LBJ or Nixon either, or Bill Clinton (can you say Rose Law Firm Records, Travelgate, Death of Vince Foster, kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez, Carol Browner’s destruction of government records at EPA, etc.).

>>Addresses and ph#s not necessary, maybe you could just point out which one on howobamagotelected.com you are.>>

Unless of course you donated to the campaign to pass Prop 8 in California. Then your address and phone # should be published so that people can blacklist you.

So what’s your problem, Souris, with publishing names and phone # of Obama donors ?

Transparency: “Great job! Does this mean we get to find out who his campaign donors were? $600 of his $700million dollars was made in either online or unreported donations under $200. Transparency would provide that list. Secrecy means that no one in the United States knows who paid for their President/who their President owes favors.
F”

Wow. “Under $200” is pretty cheap to get personal favors from the leader of the free world.

I give this blog an “F”


Thanks for the link. However, remember that this particular NY Times article comes from 2002, when the Times was infamous for taking Bush administration statements at face value. Here’s another link saying the GAO said not much happened, and in both cases no investigator saw the damage, but took Bush staffers’ word for it. We now know their word wasn’t worth anything.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/05/19/MN169709.DTL

@Tim in SF: An “F” from a SF Lib translates into an “A++” in real America.

Thanks for the compliment.

@Eric Ferguson:

*Your* comment in #20:

“Bush’s people didn’t find the W’s missing from the keyboards. That story was made up.”

From *your* source in #28:

“At the time, Clinton officials admitted to pranks — like removing the “W” from computer keyboards”

@Eric Ferguson:

Bush’s people didn’t find the W’s missing from the keyboards. That story was made up.

Hmmm….really?

From the story you linked in response #28:

At the time, Clinton officials admitted to pranks — like removing the “W” from computer keyboards

Damn!

Busted by your own link.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

@Aye Chihuahua

I do hate it, but it’s my own fault for not reading further down the article. Doing too many things at once. It does support the claim that there was no major vandalism, but it does back up the missing “W” story.

At least no one can say I can’t admit an error. Wait, I’m not supposed to do that in a blog, am I?

@Ron:

I’m sure Wordsmith got quite a chuckle out of that one Ron. Also sure that we are both quite content in thinking I will never be writing for Flopping Aces.

Thank you very much.

@Eric Ferguson:

Doing too many things at once.

Perhaps that as well hurrying to defend the indefensible.

Let’s look at this further:

Your sourced report was written on May 19, 2001 and was based on a letter from the GAO prior to a full investigation.

The final 220 page report from the GAO wasn’t released until June 11, 2002.

The results of that report are actually quite different from what you are trying to present here as fact.

Furthermore, I wouldn’t say that approx $20,000 worth of damage is “no major vandalism” but your mileage may vary.

A summary of the GAO report:

The Truth:
The final, official report from the Government Accounting Office was released on June 11, 2002. The 220 page document says there was damage, although not as much as some of the early reports had suggested. The GAO says the damage included 62 missing computer keyboards, 26 cell phones, two cameras, ten antique doorknobs and several presidential medallions and office signs. The damage estimate was about $20,000. Clinton critics say the report proves that the departing Clinton staff members acted recklessly and disrespectfully. Clinton supporters say the report shows that the allegations of vandalism were exaggerated and that there were similar incidents when Clinton took over the White House from the staff of George Bush.

The GAO report concludes that even though damage was verified and that some of it appeared to have been intentional, there was not clear evidence of who was responsible for it.

::snip::

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer outlined the details of the damage, most of which was in the Eisenhower Execitive Office Building adjacent to the White House. On June 3, 2001 The Washington Post quoted Fleischer as saying that the damage included the removal of the letter “W” from 100 computer keyboards, five missing brass nameplates with the presidential seal on them, 75 telephones with cover plates missing or apparently intentionally plugged into the wrong wall outlets, six fax machines relocated in the same way, ten cut phone lines, two historic door knobs missing, overturned desks and furniture in about 20 percent of the offices, obscene graffiti in six offices, and eight 14-foot loads of usable office supplies recovered from the trash. According to Fleischer, there was one incident in the White House itself, a photocopy machine that had copies of naked people hidden in the paper tray so they would come out from time to time with other copies.

***

At least no one can say I can’t admit an error. Wait, I’m not supposed to do that in a blog, am I?

You’re certainly welcome to handle things as you see fit. Some of us don’t find ourselves in that particular predicament.

@Aye Chihuahua

You should have been satisfied with my admission of error, because it looks like, from your sources, that you need to walk it back. You quoted above, “The GAO report concludes that even though damage was verified and that some of it appeared to have been intentional, there was not clear evidence of who was responsible for it.”

SOME of it was intentional, who did it wasn’t verified, neither the Bush claims nor Clinton denials were fully verified. Looks like the GAO split the difference. So while I was clearly wrong about the whole story being wrong, you’ve gone too far the other direction.

“You’re certainly welcome to handle things as you see fit. Some of us don’t find ourselves in that particular predicament.” Um, yeah, you might want to be more careful about statements like that.

@Mike’s America

“An “F” from a SF Lib translates into an “A++” in real America.”

Mike, are you really unaware of how the “real America” rhetoric backfired? Suburbs and cities ARE “real America”. I’ve lived in cities, suburbs, and a small town, and I can tell you that as much as people in small towns don’t appreciate it when they’re made to feel looked down on, those who don’t live in small towns also don’t like being told we’re dumber or less moral etc. In purely partisan terms, I didn’t mind Republicans talking that way because I saw it was helping Democrats, but in terms of Americans communicating with Americans, I’m just telling you it doesn’t help, anymore than if a suburbanite or a urbanite said something derogatory about small towns and didn’t know why insulting you didn’t change your mind.

And speaking as someone who doesn’t live in San Francisco, using it as a pejorative just doesn’t work.

@Missy:

Also sure that we are both quite content in thinking I will never be writing for Flopping Aces.

Well, you’re more than welcomed to submit a reader’s post, Missy. I don’t think FA is looking to recruit any new authors, but there’s no reason why you can’t put up a worthwhile post, if you have the interest for it. There’s certainly nothing special about what I write; much of what I do is find items of interest and blockquote ’em; sometimes turned into an incoherent mess since I get overly link-happy.

I love your comments and your temperament, Missy.

@Eric Ferguson:

You should have been satisfied with my admission of error, because it looks like, from your sources, that you need to walk it back.

So while I was clearly wrong about the whole story being wrong, you’ve gone too far the other direction.

No, not so much.

You see, Eric, there is no question as to who, as a group, was responsible. The answer is, and always was, the Clinton staffers. The question of who, as individuals, were responsible is perhaps a little more up in the air, although the GAO, through their investigation, had the info available to zero in pretty close to their targets. In fact, there’s not one iota of evidence, or even a whiff of an accusation to point to incoming Bush staffers for culpability or exaggeration on this.

That appears to be where you’re looking for wiggle room.

Sorry, but your “split the difference” contention doesn’t work out for you.

Um, yeah, you might want to be more careful about statements like that.

Not so much on that one either Eric. I’m not the one who was busted by my own link.

Just sayin’

@Wordsmith:

Pshaw! Evidently my taste favors “nothing special” and an “incoherent mess” that gets “overly link happy” kind of writing. I’m just here for the ride, you drive.

@Eric Ferguson:

Ironic that as you are making comments about real America, this post came back up in the lineup, Obama’s slice of “real America”

Obama Built His Entire Legislative Record in Illinois in a Single Year, And None of it Was His [Reader Post]