Obama's Report Card: A progressive’s critique

The Obama administration’s performance on health care reform has been abysmal. The bare minimum that was required to have my support for this reform package was the inclusion of a public option. Once that was out, so was I.

Our economy is still in the crapper. While I understand that not all of the blame lies with Obama, he certainly could have done more. His economic policies are focused too much on helping the well-off and not enough on helping average working people. The banking and auto industry bailouts were expensive and it’s not even entirely clear to me that they were necessary.

In addition, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s performance has been lackluster at best, and it is becoming increasingly evident that he should be sacked.

This is the one area in which the Obama administration has made some real and significant improvements over the Bush administration. Obama’s Iran strategy really seemed to be making progress up until the June elections there, and the gradual thawing of relations with Cuba is a step in the right direction. I like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s newly head-on and surprisingly blunt approach to cyber security and Internet freedom in China and other authoritarian countries, and, overall, I think her straightforward and hard-working style is paying off. Also, despite some criticism from the international community, I think the U.S. reaction to the crisis in Haiti was well-managed and effective.

The President campaigned on the idea of extending equality for all Americans. Some of his ideas were fundamentally flawed even then, such as refusal to support same-sex marriage. However, I am realistic enough to admit that no viable candidate for the presidency could be in favor of same-sex marriage and win. He did, however, pledge to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Far from doing this, the President has actually instructed federal attorneys to support the Defense of Marriage Act in two court cases involving suits against the federal government over the act’s constitutionality and has refused to take the initiative to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen delivered absolutely no concrete results, and the cap and trade bill appears likely to be killed by Congress.

Grade: D