Obama is not a good president

I hope this will be the first of many opportunities for us to debate with one another. Readers, thank you for your time and interest as well. To recap the debate up to this round, here are the topics which we have discussed: Recap Obamacare: Pro initially attacked it as a complete failure, but as far as I can tell seems to have agreed with me that it is too early to form any definitive conclusions at this time. Many readers are probably deeply unimpressed by the administration’s rollout so far. In all honesty, if he pushed me on this issue there are some questions I would have had a hard time giving a good answer to. But he didn’t gain any traction here because Pro completely dropped this line of argument. Syria: Pro initially attacked Obama’s handling of Syria, but after my refutation about the complexity of geopolitics and the necessity for deception in dealing with enemies like Assad, Pro completely dropped this line of argument. Fallacy: In round 3 Pro accused me of committing the Ad Hominem and Red Herring fallacies. I refuted this, and Pro completely dropped this line of argument. Afghanistan: Pro accused Obama of taking an unnecessary risk of our Afghani allies failing by taking American troops out too early. Additionally, he criticized Obama for still spending 4 million per year on Afghanistan. I rejected his somewhat contradictory criticisms by pointing out that 1) it is the responsibility for the people of Afghanistan to defend themselves, and 2) we can and should still support them to give them a good chance at success, and the 4 billion we spend a year on that now is only a fraction of the tens and even hundreds of billions of dollars we’ve spent per year during the past several years. Pro completely dropped this line of argument. Osama bin Laden: Pro claimed that Obama provided weak and hesitating leadership in the attack against the head of Al Qaeda, and Pro clumsily cited a source which debunked the exact argument he was trying to make, exposing it for the falsehood that it is. Pro completely dropped this line of argument. America’s Image in the World: Pro claimed that Obama wasn’t doing enough to make our enemies happier with us. I explained that this charge is baseless because Obama’s foreign policy has led to a number of unprecedented diplomatic successes as a result of his outreach. Pro completely dropped this line of argument. Illegal Voting: I’m sorry to have to keep repeating myself so much, but after I refuted his flimsy case, which rested on a (so far failed) accusation made by a Republican attorney general, once again Pro completely dropped this line of argument. Bernanke According to Fox News, here is what the famous conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer - who is always looking for something bad to say about Obama and almost never had a kind word for the President - said about Bernanke’s reappointment: “…this is a perfect example of an administration in disarray. The reappointment of Bernanke is one of the good decisions that Obama has made. This is a guy who did save our economy in '08 and '09. He made a lot of tactical errors, on the big issue, the one issue — we had a mountain of private debt that was becoming insolvent. It was going to destroy our economy. He nationalized it, which was the only way to do it. He has taken a lot of hits, but that was the right decision. Obama is right in reappointing him. ” [15] ABC News reported at the time: “Many on Wall Street and in academic circles believe that Bernanke is the best choice to lead the country into a sustainable recovery and would be in the best position to figure out when and how to reel in the trillions of dollars pumped into the economy to battle the crisis. "Wall Street can rest a little easier now," said Chris Rupkey, an economist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. "Having a new chairman come in at this late date would put the Fed-engineered solution to both the recovery and the exit strategy at risk. " [16] Secret Panel of Experts What is Pro even talking about? He provided no sources or references and was not specific in telling us about what decisions made by Obama he is referring to. Maybe this is just another one of those “it just sounds good” sort of 007 villain conspiracies and caricatures that are always popping up against Obama but that have absolutely no foundation of truth, like the one Pro clumsily made and then helped to debunk about Obama’s poor leadership in getting Osama. The Fed has always been the one to make decisions about monetary policy, and by design, it has always been insulated from politics. This has nothing to do with Obama, and this has been the structure of things long before he was ever even born. [17] This is a complaint about the American financial system if that’s what Pro is referring to, this is not a complaint about Obama or his judgment. Unemployment, Oil, and Other Statistics Pro cites from Mr. Conservative, an obviously biased and unestablished (since 2012? ? ), and therefore probably non-credible source. Even so, let’s assume all of the statistics provided are completely true. The biggest problem is that they are not put in context. Obama inherited an economy in freefall. In 2007, many were certain that financial Armageddon was on the horizon. To compare the performance of the economy for him at that time period with the performance of the economy for Clinton, or Bush, or any other recent president is completely inappropriate because they were not facing the same situation. Additionally, financial busts are among the slowest recessions for an economy to recover from (feel free to investigate the presentation by Marco Terrones submitted to the IMF) [18]. The fact that we are seeing any kind of recovery at all is largely because of the quick action of men like Bernanke and Obama, and even to some extent G. W. Bush, who did promptly use stimulus. Summary of the Debate In the final round, Pro made a very risky gamble by completely giving up on everything that we’ve talked about through the entire debate. He didn’t just fail to summarize his case, he completely abandoned it and started a whole new one. As frowned upon as this might be by some voters, I didn’t assume that voters will penalize Pro for this. Instead, I offered a full refutation of his latest arguments, and thus my opponent has failed to meet his burden of proof in demonstrating that Obama is not a good president. Meanwhile, I have given some reasons to think that Obama may have in fact been a very good president overall, and my opponent failed to refute most of those claims, particularly from round 2, meaning that they stand uncontested. My sources have routinely been more credible, have been employed in the service of backing up my claims, and I have even turned some of his sources against his position. Lastly, I’d like to point out that a “good” president does not mean a “perfect” president. By Pro’s own admission, Obama has made big risks, has taken chances, and tried to solve enormously difficult problems. I’d like to remind readers of the immortal words of one of America’s greatest leaders, Teddy Roosevelt. Like it or not, today it is Mr. Obama who stands in the arena. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. ” Sources 15) . http://www.foxnews.com... 16) . http://abcnews.go.com... 17) . http://www.federalreserveeducation.org... 18) . http://baselinescenario.com...