Overview of President Obama's historic accomplishments.

[True Blue Door]

This is by no means a comprehensive list, even of the most historic achievements:

First black President of the United States.

Averted total Soviet-style economic collapse due to 2008 mortgage-backed securities failure.

Saved the American auto industry from total annihilation.

Largest expansion in healthcare access in half a century.

Largest nationwide reconstruction program since Roosevelt administration.

Largest investments in green technology in US history.

Got Osama Bin Laden.

Diplomacy with Iran.

Reversed Bush tax cuts for the rich.

First US administration to regulate CO2 emissions.

Opened the military to gays.

Ended the Iraq War.

Reduced the federal budget deficit year after year.

Increased the minimum wage for federal contractors.

Created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Created ARPA-E (the Energy Department equivalent of DARPA to pursue green energy)

Rebuilt America's relationship with Europe.

"New START" nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, signed and ratified.

Helped the Libyan people end the rule of Moammar Gaddafi.

Appointed most diverse Cabinets in history.

Yielded marijuana regulation authority to the states.

And we will see what comes of the recent climate change deal with China, and the immigration order potentially affecting the fate of millions.

---

Anyone who denies this President is a Great President, a Great American, a liberal, a progressive, and a Democrat among Democrats, is either a liar or a fool. Or both.

[liberal N proud]

1. The Democrats who ran from this and lost deserved what they got.

[Cha]

5. Yeah, but we didn't!

[Cosmocat]

9. And what is most unforunate

is that if his spineless, puke party had actually FOUGHT for, not just him, but more progressive policies, MORE would have been achieved.

[True Blue Door]

11. This is true - a guilt we all share.

We failed to preserve or rebuild even a simple Democratic majority in Congress capable of passing legislation. We've now had three opportunities, and failed all three.

[Cosmocat]

24. arg

The republican's never stop, just NEVER stop ...

And, the democrats become increasingly useless as time goes on.

But, somehow people want to think the repubilcans are in trouble?

[True Blue Door]

25. They're driven by lust for power. We're driven by hope for society and mankind.

It's easier to get distracted when your motives are ethereal and intellectual.

They are in trouble, but they're animals and will exploit every opportunity to feed.

We're much less instinctive, and we tend to be complacent with our advantages and defeatist with our disadvantages instead of just acting to exploit or correct them.

[IronLionZion]

2. Yeah that's all very nice, but where's my pony?

[Cha]

6. You..

need a time out.

[True Blue Door]

23. A pony is weak-sauce, compromise stuff. Save that shit for the DLC.

Real progressives demand unicorns.

[madokie]

3. The three votes I personally think is my best

were all three cast for Obama.
I like smart people

[Cha]

7. Hey that's right.. me too!

[True Blue Door]

14. Yes, it's a great feeling having a President one can identify with.

George W. Bush was my antithesis - as if some cosmic force had mathematically calculated the exact properties of a human being that would offend and infuriate me.

Obama is very much one of my people, whatever that means. Logic people. Conscious people. Optimists.

He's the first President in my lifetime that I think of as "my President." Never thought of Clinton that way - always saw him as something very different from myself, although I liked him. Doubt I'd have seen Carter or Johnson that way if I'd been around either. Maybe Kennedy. Probably Roosevelt.

[pampango]

4. Krugman: "Once one of the president’s most notable critics, on why Obama is a historic success."

When it comes to Barack Obama, I've always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.

But now the shoe is on the other foot: Obama faces trash talk left, right and center – literally – and doesn't deserve it. Despite bitter opposition, despite having come close to self-inflicted disaster, Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history. His health reform is imperfect but still a huge step forward – and it's working better than anyone expected. Financial reform fell far short of what should have happened, but it's much more effective than you'd think. Economic management has been half-crippled by Republican obstruction, but has nonetheless been much better than in other advanced countries. And environmental policy is starting to look like it could be a major legacy.

I'll go through those achievements shortly. First, however, let's take a moment to talk about the current wave of Obama-bashing. All Obama-bashing can be divided into three types. One, a constant of his time in office, is the onslaught from the right, which has never stopped portraying him as an Islamic atheist Marxist Kenyan. Nothing has changed on that front, and nothing will.

There's a different story on the left, where you now find a significant number of critics decrying Obama as, to quote Cornel West, someone who ''posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit.'' They're outraged that Wall Street hasn't been punished, that income inequality remains so high, that ''neoliberal'' economic policies are still in place. All of this seems to rest on the belief that if only Obama had put his eloquence behind a radical economic agenda, he could somehow have gotten that agenda past all the political barriers that have constrained even his much more modest efforts. It's hard to take such claims seriously.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/in-defense-of-obama-20141008

[Cha]

8. Mahalo pampango!..

[Nitram]

10. I think I'd say "ended the Iraq occupation"...

...rather than "ended the Iraq war."Tthe Iraq war is not really over, but it looks like middle eastern players have been persuaded to help handle the problems there.

[True Blue Door]

16. The consequences of a war never stop rippling.

Wars we've never heard of, between groups we've never heard of, speaking languages that no living person has ever heard, over matters we wouldn't understand, before humankind had developed writing, still echo faintly in our blood.

But the Iraq War was over when American regular forces left Iraq. A limited drone campaign fighting a terrorist militia from Syria is not the same thing.

[RiverLover]

12. "Ended the Iraq War." Really?

Costs of Obama's New War in Iraq and Syria Set to Explode, say Analysts
10/1/2014

The U.S. government's new war in Iraq that now also includes Syria has already cost American taxpayers between $780 and $930 million, and could amount to over $1 billion a month if U.S. efforts intensify on the scale demanded by war hawks in Congress, according to a think tank analysis published this week.

According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments:

Assuming a moderate level of air operations and 2,000 deployed ground forces, the costs would likely run between $200 and $320 million per month. If air operations are conducted at a higher pace and 5,000 ground forces are deployed, the costs would be between $350 and $570 million per month. If operations expand significantly to include the deployment of 25,000 U.S. troops on the ground, as some have recommended, costs would likely reach $1.1 to $1.8 billion per month....

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/01/costs-obamas-new-war-iraq-and-syria-set-explode-say-analysts

[True Blue Door]

17. Yes, "really." Not even remotely the same thing.

You equate a war of murderous aggression that killed a million Iraqis and 5,000 American troops, that cost us a trillion dollars and our international moral authority, with a limited drone campaign in a fraction of Iraq that practically the entire world supports?

Saying things just because you have some kind of ideological jones to believe them is not responsible.

[baldguy]

13. But how could that be? The "progressives" on DU keep telling me that Obama's not a *real* liberal

Or a *real* Democrat, for that matter. And the only people who won were those who ran away from Obama's "3rd way RW corporatist crypto Republican" policies.



Maybe the "progressives" claiming that aren't really progressives? Just as you say.

+10000

[True Blue Door]

19. They miss the most obvious and perfect definition of "progressive": One who makes progress.

Of course they could never accept such a definition, since it would rule out almost everyone they admire - including the person they admire most, themselves.

[fadedrose]

15. He makes great speeches with unsurpassed delivery

(Unlike contenders)

I don't think he has failed to bring tears to my eyes in his major addresses.

And he's likeable, no, lovable. This can't be taught.

[Snarkoleptic]

18. While still lacking the requisite pony, I'm still quite pleased with (most of) this list-

245 Things President Obama Has Accomplished That Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/12/245-things-president-obama-has-accomplished-that-conservatives-dont-want-you-to-know-about/

[True Blue Door]

20. That link has been rerouted to a small timeline about the Afghan War.

[Snarkoleptic]

26. That was weird.

Fixed the link above and here's another.
Thanks,

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/12/245-things-president-obama-has-accomplished-that-conservatives-dont-want-you-to-know-about/

[True Blue Door]

27. Thanks. That's a good reference to have.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

21. But he's black, True Blue Door, what he's done will never be good enough!

He can never succeed without the help of Bill Clinton's speech at the DNC or Mitt Romney's gaffes or because McCain chose Palin or some reason other than his own talent or merit.

And Michael Moore already told us that all people will ever remember him for is being black...oh, and we were told that that statement wasn't racist, so shut the hell up!

See...

Ridiculous how this man has been treated! Utter disgrace!

[True Blue Door]

22. Fortunately, the First Black President is something that will magnify him in hindsight.

Even as it causes unhinged mania against him while in office, as an historical figure it will put him on a pedestal that his real merits will only make all the more solid.

Every President we speak of with reverence today, was most definitely not spoken of that way during most of their time in office.

None of them faced this level of psychotic propaganda from a domestic opponent, of course - unless you count how the Confederates spoke of Lincoln while murdering their countrymen. But it's the President we remember, and not the nutjobs attacking him or their incoherent, contradictory lies.