Obama's outlook

Barack Obama became president under an unusual set of circumstances. Most presidents can expect to be praised or blamed based on what happens during their administrations: if the economy is good, they will get the credit (or at least will benefit from the good feeling in the electorate), and if it is bad, they will be blamed. One exception to this was FDR, who inherited a disastrous economy. Everyone blamed Hoover, and it didn't matter that FDR didn't do much to bring about recovery; he got a pass because the economy was a disaster when he took over.

Obama is in a similar situation on the economy. Thankfully, things are not nearly as bad as the Depression (despite what some people say), but they are worse than they have been in a long time. Because this started six months ago, while Bush was still president, he gets the blame. No one expect Obama to turn the economy around instantly. I expect that he will not start attrating much blame until the end of 2010, if the economy is still bad by then. Most economists predict the recession will last that long, so we may get a chance to see whether this is true or not.

On the other hand, the situation in foreign policy is nearly the reverse. People have widely criticized Bush's foreign policy, especially the Iraq war, but there is no denying that the United States has avoided a terrorist attack since 9/11. Since Obama has so roundly denounced Bush's approach to terrorism -- even changing the name of the "war on terror" -- he will be in big trouble if the terrorists strike again during his first term. (Maybe his second, too, if there is one, but that's too far for me to predict.) Just as it doesn't matter why the economy actually tanked last year, it doesn't matter why there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 2001, and it won't matter much why one happens in the future: Obama, and his new policies, are going to take the blame. The same goes, to a lesser extent, for Iraq. If Obama pulls out of Iraq quickly as he promised, the Iraqi government could collapse, become a revolutionary Shi'a state, and/or become a new haven for terrorists. Any of those things would make the withdrawal appear very shortsighted. (However, based on what happened in South Vietnam, I'm not sure how much this would affect his popularity outside of professional journalists and politicians; Iraq is a long way away.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Science and Philosophy, Part I: Hume and Popper

I've been listening to a lecture series on philosophy recently, and, even though I haven't gotten past the Greeks yet, it has reminded me of a number of issues that trouble me about science. I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns here. Along the way, I will probably oversimplify philosophy a great deal -- not on purpose, but rather because I have only a simplistic understanding of it. I welcome responses to clear up my misconceptions. One of my issues with science is the famous idea of Karl Popper that it can never establish positive claims, only falsify wrong ones. The history of this goes back to David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptic. He shook up the philosophical world by claiming that science could never prove anything through induction -- that is, drawing conclusions about physical laws based on observations. The classic illustration is the sun's rising. Even though the sun has risen every day for our whole lives, and for countless human l
Read more

Country Music

I noticed a long time ago that there isn't much difference between the sound of country music and rock music nowadays. If I'm surfing my radio and I come to a station playing jazz, classical, or rap, I recognize it right away; but if I come to a country or rock station, I often can't tell which it is until the song is half over. Country songs often have screaming guitars that would fit equally well in a hard rock song, and only a minority have a recognizably country instrument such as a fiddle or a banjo. All the same, no one could listen to a country music station for more than a few minutes without realizing that it is definitely not a rock station. What are the differences? There are some stylistic differences. Country songs are more likely to have a boogey beat or certain western-sounding bass lines. They also tend to be more formulaic: if you can't predict how a country song ends, you probably don't listen to much country music. But those things aren'
Read more

What Are Pronouns For?

 Here's what I don't get about people defining their own pronouns (and I use "their" advisedly):  If I am talking to you, your pronoun is "you."  No one disputes that.  If I am talking about you to another person, the pronoun I use to reference you is none of your business.  I am in a conversation with someone else; you are not a party to it, and you are not entitled to impose rules on it.  Ideally, you will never know what we say -- but if you do find out, it doesn't matter because the pronouns I used were for my convenience, not for your feelings.  Heck, I may not even have met you, may not have any idea what you identify as or even what sex you really are (as sometimes happens when people have names like "Leslie" or "Ashley" that get used for both sexes, or foreign names that I am unfamiliar with).  So mind your business and there will be nothing to get offended about.
Read more