Obama is not a good president

Introduction Thank you for the opportunity to debate this topic, Pro, and thank you readers for your interest. Before we begin the debate, I’d like to make some things clear about the structure of our debate. 1) As framed, I have no burden of proof to demonstrate that Obama is a great, or even good president. While this is one possible strategy I have the option to pursue, please note that I am clearly not required to do this. As both Pro and instigator, the BoP lies with my opponent to show that Obama is not a good president. As long as I sufficiently refute the arguments offered by my opponent to support his case, that would negate the resolution, and I will have won. I only will have lost if I both fail to sufficiently undermine his arguments, and also fail to successfully build a counter-case at least as strong as my opponent’s that Obama is in fact a good or even great president. 2) When voting on this debate, your job is to determine which side argued more convincingly, and not necessarily which side you personally happen most strongly agree with. However you might feel about President Obama should be irrelevant to your decision. No vote in this debate is in fact a vote for him. You are voting either for me, or for my opponent as being the most convincing debater, and that’s it. In your own research, you may come across what you consider to be powerful reasons to believe that Obama is a bad president. However, if my opponent does not make those arguments in his case, then they are not valid for consideration in the context of your voting decision for this debate (the same obviously goes for any points supporting my case which you yourself might know about, but which I fail to make). 3) With the current news cycle being decidedly against Democrats, the Affordable Care Act and Obama specifically, I recognize that I have my work cut out for me. In fact I accepted this precisely for the expected challenge. I don’t ask for charity from the voters, but merely an open mind and an impartial review of our performance as debaters rather than your agreement with our respective positions. Thank you in advance. 4) The definition of what constitutes a “good” or “great” president deserves clarification. Carl Rove, perhaps the greatest conservative strategist of the early 21st century, provided his suggestions for what makes a great president in a speech in 2002. I thought his view was expressed masterfully, and suggest using his criteria in judging Obama’s presidency. Unless I hear otherwise from my opponent, I will assume he does not object to using the following criteria: Clarity of vision (about the goal, not necessarily the methods) Concerned with big issues and big challenges Seek to explain their vision in way that allows people to understand their circumstances and develop confidence in those proposals. Emotional intelligence Respect for public opinion, but actions not dictated by polls Surrounds himself with a strong team Readiness to act and a comfort in deciding Pro’s Arguments Refuted 1) Geopolitics is an extremely complicated, high stakes realm. We can’t do something about one thing like Syria without impacting a thousand other things, not least of which our relationships with allies and rivals. Contrast Syria with Libya, where enemy ground forces were exposed in a long trek through the desert, allowing air support to be sufficient to topple the dictator. Our military options are much more limited where Syria is concerned, civilian casualties are expected to be far higher because of the more urbanized theater for the campaign. This means that a ground presence and large occupation force would be necessary for us to both overthrow Assad and stabilize the country to prevent further loss of life. Retaliation from Assad’s allies is expected to be far more severe than it was in the case of the more isolated Qaddafi. It is true that as the American leader, and thus the de facto leader of Western Civilization, Obama has a responsibility to try to preserve hard fought international treaties such as the chemical weapons ban. However, he has the competing responsibility to protect and promote America’s national interests. He rightly sees the avoidance of war, and even the avoidance of a rebel success as being in our national interest, since the rebels are largely comprised of jihadist anti-Americans. Russia clearly has her own self-interest at the heart of her offer, but Obama’s acceptance of a deal with Russia – even if it proves ineffective, which I expect it to – means that we avoided a worse catastrophe and saved as much face as this no-win scenario will allow for. 2) My opponent sounds as if he wants retribution for the crisis of 2007, but experience tells us that going on a banker’s witch hunt simply would not have been a productive use of time and resources, and would have led to more problems than it solved. Instead, Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and notably proposed that the Volker Rule be included, which prohibits depository banks from proprietary trading. This important legislation reduces systemic risk and addresses threats to the nation’s financial stability. [2] 3) ACA is off to an embarrassingly rough start, yes. The size of the project may have been overly ambitious for the timetable, but it is still far too soon to claim it as a failure, however. Social security also had plenty of critics when it was first instituted, but there are few politicians or economists who would advocate for its elimination now. Time will tell if Obamacare becomes similarly indispensable, or remains controversial. In either case, the website won’t stay down forever, even if the heroes of this tale end up being volunteer citizen programmers instead of government officials. [3] As for employers who have dropped their workers from plans in opposition to ACA, we have yet to see what the government response is, so again, it is too early to say that Obama has lied. Sources 1) http://hnn.us... 2) http://www.sec.gov... 3) http://www.cnn.com...