The Obama Years.

[cadaverdog]

President Obama is about to step down and President Elect Trump (barring any successful assassination attempts) is about to take over. Now comes the time to contemplate this question. Are we better or worse off now than we we're 8 years ago when Obama took office?
I'm on the fence myself. I don't hate the man and I applaud some of the efforts he made as president to make this country a better place to live in.
That being said, let the shit slinging begin.

[FORD]

Better off than when the Chimp left office? Yes.

Better off than we should have been? Hell no!.

And the blame for that can fall both on the unprecedented levels of right wing obstructionism AND Barry's own tendencies to begin negotiations from the DLC corporatist "middle" rather than the left, automatically ensuring a right wing outcome to the few things he managed to get passed, despite the obstructionism. (i.e. "Obamacare", which was essentially the same thing as the Nixon plan from 1972, the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation plan of the 80s, or the Mittens Romney plan implemented in Massachusetts in the 1990s. It was definitely not the single payer plan needed, nor even the "public option" plan which Barry himself campaigned on - and thus won the primary over Hillary, who was actually running on Romneycare. )

I didn't vote for Barry in 2012.... but I'd take another 4 years of him over a Russian powered orange Nazi piss freak

[vandeleur]

I suspect he will be judged in a different light in the coming years.

[DONNIEP]

The Imama single handedly restored peace to the entire world, created 37 gazillion jobs in America, brought the races together here, and healed a little cripple boy with his Magic Kenyan Witch Doctor Powers. Hopefully he'll be crowned Imperial Wizard or whatever of the entire galaxy this year.

[Seshmeister]

He was steady.

He disappointed everyone by promising too much and then being unable to deliver it but the bottom line for the rest of the world is that he didn't make things worse.

That's unusual.

He didn't start new wars and he came across as though he was thinking about shit before he did it.

I get that there are criticisms to be made but in comparison to the recent people - he's going to be the best for 40 years. It's a very low bar but just getting out of office without huge corruption or killing 100 000 people unnecessarily at this point is a win for a US president!

[Seshmeister]

Better off than when the Chimp left office? Yes.

Better off than we should have been? Hell no!.

And the blame for that can fall both on the unprecedented levels of right wing obstructionism AND Barry's own tendencies to begin negotiations from the DLC corporatist "middle" rather than the left, automatically ensuring a right wing outcome to the few things he managed to get passed, despite the obstructionism. (i.e. "Obamacare", which was essentially the same thing as the Nixon plan from 1972, the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation plan of the 80s, or the Mittens Romney plan implemented in Massachusetts in the 1990s. It was definitely not the single payer plan needed, nor even the "public option" plan which Barry himself campaigned on - and thus won the primary over Hillary, who was actually running on Romneycare. )

I didn't vote for Barry in 2012.... but I'd take another 4 years of him over a Russian powered orange Nazi piss freak

The main thing that went wrong is him not having the house in sufficient numbers to offset the 'pretend' Democrats.

[Terry]

8 years of no new wars.

A depression averted.

Economy slowly growing again.

Virtually no personal or political scandals - certainly in comparison to every president since (and including) Reagan, Obama is leaving office untarnished.

Voted for him twice, would have gladly done it a third time if it were possible.

Obama's two terms in office were imperfect: the performance fell short of the campaign rhetoric. Then again, humans aren't perfect and neither is life.

I'm proud to have voted for him, and thankful he served.

[cadaverdog]

Virtually no personal or political scandals - certainly in comparison to every president since (and including) Reagan, Obama is leaving office untarnished.

What about the Bergdahl bullshit? He traded five terrorists for one traitor. I also believe he has a lot to do with the sad shape of race relations in the U S right now Then again I think liberals who stereotype anyone who would vote for Donald Trump as a racist, sexist, homophobic, white supremacist card carrying, robe wearing member of the KKK has had a lot to do with that too.

[cadaverdog]

I get that there are criticisms to be made but in comparison to the recent people - he's going to be the best for 40 years. It's a very low bar but just getting out of office without huge corruption or killing 100 000 people unnecessarily at this point is a win for a US president!

Is that another prediction? The president before Obama was a shithead. I'll admit that. Bubba's biggest fuck up was letting the little head do all the thinking for the big head. Hate to admit it but he kicked ass economically.
That means the next 24 years are gonna have to suck worse than the last 8 presidentially for that to happen. I was kind of hoping things were gonna get better.

[FORD]

I was kind of hoping things were gonna get better.

Any chance of things getting measurably better disappeared when Debbie Scatterbrained-Lush and the stupid-delegates stole the Democratic primary.

After that the only question was which kind of worse, And if we get Cheeto's cabinet of complete incompetents, and then he's impeached and we get Pence's theocracy on top of all that, that's about every kind of worse imaginable.

[Seshmeister]

What about the Bergdahl bullshit? He traded five terrorists for one traitor.

That wasn't a scandal, it was a difficult decision.

The real mistake with Bergdahl was by the Army recruiters.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Real classy, putting that banner up top.....

[DONNIEP]

Real classy, putting that banner up top.....

Sesh wanted to add a torch but we figured some people would think it was racist...

[Von Halen]

Real classy, putting that banner up top.....

I tried to talk Sesh out of it...

[Seshmeister]

Fixed!