Pick your own devil's advocate.

Thank you for your excellent argument :) Again, my apologies for my failure to get my argument submitted in time for last round. I think it is entirely reasonable to draw the conclusion that Barack Obama has failed to achieve his stated desires for his presidency in any decisive sort of way. Take healthcare, for example. The original idea for healthcare involved quite a few stipulations, including the idea of a public exchange and what amounted to a government run insurance plan, which could not refuse care, and which would pay for itself with its own premiums and not tax dollars, thus setting the stage to prevent price gouging and ensure fair prices in a competitive environment. Neither of these panned out. The "obamacare" that finally got put into position is a ripped apart, tangled mess of remains of the original system. It is change, and is an improvement over the previous system, but it is hardly decisive. Obama also sought to eliminate the climate of corruption in the White House. He fought to get republicans and democrats working together, he fought to serve and reflect the views of the American people as a whole, but anyone can see how That turned out. The bickering has only grown worse, to the point that several republicans have made it their primary political objective to make Obama a failure, and most are fiercely opposed to him, granting no compromise. This inability to compromise even led to significant consequences, as the credit rating of the US dropping, with their refusal to raise the credit limit, as they'd done regularly for years. The primary job of the president is to lead - the checks and balances system is designed to prevent any one person from gaining too much power. Inherently, the president's job is not to make laws, to make policy, or to Do much at all, really. His job is a primarily verbal one - his job is to lead the people. To negotiate compromises, to represent the country in foreign affairs, to speak to the people about the government's actions, and to speak to the various government members to get everyone working together. That is the ultimate job of the president, and in that regard, regardless of the reasons why or whose fault it is, he is a complete failure. To my knowledge, never has a party outright attempted to sabotage the career of the chosen representative of the people. And he wasn't even able to get his own party, the democrats, to work in unison. Even if it's not his fault, it's still a failure. Take the most skilled archer in all the world, hog tie him, and put a bow in his hands. He is suddenly not an effective archer, no matter his skill or training. Likewise, Obama has practically been hog-tied by his political opponents, and no matter how good his intentions or skill, he has been rendered ineffective. With his constant battle to even keep things moving at all, most of what's come out of the government has been at the decisions of the other elected officials. The rest of the government doing their thing... they did that before him, they'll do it after, and they can do it whether or not the president is even involved. His job is to lead, and he has failed to do so. He promised to purge corruption from the government, and it's just as bad as ever... possibly even worse. He promised change - more importantly, change above and beyond the natural, normal ebb and flow - and that change never came. He promised hope, and instead, hope is in many ways shattered.