There's been a lot of coverage of Obama's first 100 days, or first 50 actually, so far. This isn't unusual really. I do find this Reuter's summation of his actions to date to be rather interesting. Not even so much for what it said, but for what it left out. It only mentioned those things they felt were positive. Hmm... At any rate, here is what Reuters had to say about the developments since he took office:
* Obama, a Democrat, was able to gain swift passage in the Democratic-controlled Congress of a $787 billion economic stimulus plan, signing the bill into law on February 17, less than a month after taking office. The aim is to create or save more than 3 million jobs.
Umm... I think we all knew he's a Democrat!
* So far, his efforts to stop the bleeding in the U.S. economy have not had an impact on turning around the recession he inherited. The U.S. unemployment rate shot up to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since 1983, as the economy continued to hemorrhage jobs at a rate of more than 600,000 a month.
Had to point out it was inherited eh? Of course it was, but when is it going to be Obama's economy? Every President eventually gets labelled with everything they inherited, whether deservedly or not, at least that's how it has always been in the past.
* The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen from about 8,000 points on January 20 to 6,866 points at midday on Tuesday, a day the stock market was on a rare surge.
Yeah, he didn't make a speech about how awful the economy was on Tuesday. That seems to help.
* Largely fulfilling a campaign pledge, Obama has put in place a plan to end U.S. combat operations in Iraq in 18 months while drawing complaints from some Democrats for saying he will leave up to 50,000 combat troops there. He has ordered the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster the military presence against a strengthened Taliban.
I'm with him on Iraq, conceptually, but not Afghanistan. Just saying...
* Obama has signaled he wants to move early to follow through on his campaign promise to engage Iran. His administration has invited Tehran to participate in a conference on Afghanistan later this month.
Yes, this is smart. Let's ask the extremists how best to handle the extremists.
* Obama and his economic team are preparing for his trip to attend the Group of 20 leading economies summit in London in early April. He is also planning a visit to Turkey to confer about Iran.
OK
* The president proposed a huge $3.55 trillion budget that funds Democratic priorities and would generate a $1.75 trillion deficit for fiscal 2010, drawing fire from Republicans who voiced concern about rising deficits.
Don't even get me started on this. How on Earth can you propose a budget with a deficit almost as large as our total annual income and then make a speech about lowering the deficit in half?
* Obama launched an effort to overhaul the costly U.S. healthcare system with a summit that drew bipartisan praise from its participants, with the goal of reaching an agreement this year.
You really want to fix the healthcare system, you've got to get the government out of the business, not make things worse, this is just gonna drive costs up. Oh wait, but you might not see higher costs, you'll just be paying higher taxes. Same difference.
* He has taken steps to advance his proposal to tackle global climate change, sketching out some estimated revenue the government could receive from requiring companies to adhere to emissions caps.
Yes, tax energy companies to the moon and see them pass that tax on to consumers. This is really smart, especially considering the President is tackling a non-existent problem.
* Obama filled out his Cabinet with several mainstream establishment figures, such as Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Robert Gates as defense secretary and Lawrence Summers as chief White House economic adviser. But the administration has been criticized for its slowness in filling deputy and undersecretary positions at key agencies like the Treasury.
Yeah?
* Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner got past some tax problems to gain Senate confirmation, while Tom Daschle's bid to become Health and Human Services secretary could not overcome tax issues. Republican Senator Judd Gregg withdrew from consideration as commerce secretary, citing political differences with the Democratic president.
Yes, it seems that many people in his cabinet and other appointments don't know how to pay their taxes (that's me being generous).
So, what am I talking about they didn't cover anything negative. As far as I'm concerned there hasn't been much positive, but here's what you didn't find in the article:
1. Executive orders to remove restrictions on government funding for abortions overseas and to remove restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research.
2. An executive order to close Guantanamo Bay (without a plan to put them anyplace else), even though we are now finding former detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq who are fighting us again. Seems maybe keeping them there until after the fighting was over might have been a smarter idea after all?
3. Giving his first official news interview with an Arab television station. Wonder how that looked to our friends in Israel.
4. Snubbing our greatest ally by not having a dinner or a joint press conference and by giving them a pack of dvds. Sorry, a dinner and press conference is normal for a visiting head of state so we should be going out of our way for a visit from our greatest ally, right?
5. Betraying our Eastern European allies in the name of getting help from Russia to solve the Iran crisis. Oh yeah, turn out backs on our newest friends who actually know the value of freedom having lived under Soviet rule while our western friends turn their backs on us and freedom (of course we are doing the same thing so...)
6. Finally, saying he'd talk with the "moderate" elements of the Taliban. This is a group that desires strict Sharia law be implemented, not just in Afghanistan, but around the world. What really does anyone have to say to them?
So, disagree with me on my assessment of the President's first 50 days, that's fine, but something has sure gone and caused his approval ratings to drop 15 points. Sure, he's got the highest approval at 50 days since Reagan, but I doubt any President before him had a 75 percent approval to start, so he really had nowhere to go but down, I suppose.
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