Has Obama been a good President, or a poor President?

[Imran Siddiqui]

How do you evaluate without goals?

You look at what they've accomplished and see if the good outweighs the bad. I mean they are politicians - the goals are there to get them elected.

[rah]

If what they've accomplished is not what they said they would accomplish, then I don't think it should count. Yes, I know politicians will say anything to get elected but I tend to try to hold them them to what they said they'd do.

[Asher]

How do you evaluate without goals?

You've been in management for too long.

[SlowwHand]

Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both like Obama. He's elevated their standing in the presidential ranking.

[DinoDoc]

Carter probably. Clinton (pre-revolution) is still better than Obama.

[The Mad Monk]

What if you aren't fond of the goals? I think evaluating on goals is kind of silly.

This poll isn't about ideology, it's about effectiveness. It is possible to not like someone, even be an enemy of someone, and still recognize their competance.

[The Mad Monk]

This.

I compared him to his predecessor and his alternative (McCain/Palin), so he got "good".

Why would you do that? I did say "absent all other conditions". This poll is to be objective, not comparitive.

[The Mad Monk]

You've been in management for too long.

...and you haven't been in it long enough.

[Asher]

Why would you do that? I did say "absent all other conditions". This poll is to be objective, not comparitive.

There is no objectivity in asking if someone is good or bad. It's all subjective.

What Americans are asked at the polls is which man should be president. If the choice is between two people, the only rational way to evaluate is to compare the outcomes.

[Lorizael]

Obama's been a bad president, but a good witch.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Well - another poll is needed: Who was a better president in the first term. GW or Obama. I bet in that one Obama would look good.

Only by using some comparative vs abysmal competition can Obama come out as anything resembling good. He had a good start, and has abysmally poor competition, but not much more than that.

In the terms of the presidential race, I am curious to see how would a Mormon White House function, just for curiosity sake, even if it means US collapse four years earlier.

[Jaguar]

I'm amazed by the confusion of ideas that could lead to a Yugoslavian believing that the US is on the brink of collapse because it might elect a capitalist.

[regexcellent]

Pretty poor. Started out with good intentions of bi-partisan governance, and failed to adapt when those bi-partisan attempts were not reciprocated.

Democrats controlled the ENTIRE GOVERNMENT with a supermajority in the senate for over a year and he couldn't get anything passed. He made no attempts at bipartisanship whatsoever, for that matter.

His foreign policy has been pretty excellent though (which was a surprise).

His foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster. His "Russian Reset" was a complete failure, he basically sold out eastern Europe, his middle east "let's **** Israel and then the Arabs will like us!" idea completely backfired, and his general policy of screwing over our allies and making overtures to our enemies convinces everyone to be our enemy instead of our friend. Euros like his foreign policy because he spent a couple of years telling everyone how much better Europe is than the United States, which is of course a load of horse**** but somehow liberals believe that poor socialist failed or failing states are superior to the most powerful country on earth.

[Jon Miller]

He's been mediocre, which is sadly not an option in the poll.

So I went with good.

That being said, I disagree with a number of things that he supports but which he said he would not support before he was elected.

JM

[DinoDoc]

Democrats controlled the ENTIRE GOVERNMENT with a supermajority in the senate for over a year and he couldn't get anything passed.

He did get something passed. It consumed the 1st two years of his term but he got something passed.