Tuesday Open Thread [6.10.14]
Jonathan Chait says Obama has accomplished all of his domestic goals that he listed in his Inaugural Address in 2009:
“On January 20, 2009, when Obama delivered his inaugural address as president, he outlined his coming domestic agenda in two sentences summarizing the challenges he identified: ‘Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.'”
“Those were the four major areas of domestic reform: economic recovery measures, health-care reform, a response to climate change, and education reform. (To the justifiable dismay of immigration advocates, Obama did not call for immigration reform at the time, and immigration reform is now the only possible remaining area for significant domestic reform.) With the announcement of the largest piece of his environmental program last Monday, Obama has now accomplished major policy responses on all these things. There is enormous room left to debate whether Obama’s agenda in all these areas qualifies as good or bad, but “ineffectual” seems as though it should be ruled out at this point.”
I know many education advocates who will disagree that education reform has taken place, or if it has, it is not a good reform. Regardless, I think when people right the book on the Obama Presidency, it is going to be the most eventful in terms of accomplishment since Franklin Roosevelt’s. Consider this from Andrew Sullivan:
Imagine the legacy [at the end of Obama’s presidency]: no troops in Iraq or Afghanistan; Gitmo closed; universal healthcare entrenched; Iran’s nuclear threat defused; marriage equality in all fifty states; the end of marijuana Prohibition; and carbon energy cut down to size. Repeat after me: meep meep, motherfuckers.
The Road Runner vs. Coyote analogy is apt even down to the fact that the Coyote has an endless reserve of money to buy ACME contraptions to cause trouble – and he is never forced to pay any price for his constant failures.
A Delaware conservative actually made a funny joke. Thank you Frank Knotts.
This is probably a freak “one off” event though. Conservative are really not funny at all.
I read that excerpt above and thought that Chait might be grading on a curve, but the article as a whole leaves a somewhat better impression. Still — all of those accomplishments are weaker than they should have been due to Republicans who thought their job was to say NO rather than to govern. But one of the real achievements of the Obama Administration is a major factor in the weakness of the accomplishments Chait notes is the reduction of the deficit (as a % of GDP) by about half since Obama took office.
MAJOR POLITICAL UPSET ALERT:
It appears that Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, is losing his primary for reelection:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/beyond-belief–2
AP calls it: Cantor loses!
Seen on craigslist: “fill dirt – free – will load for you (wilmington)”