Friday, 22 January 2010 04:00
Share Link: 
Based on his first year in office, American academics are expressing disappointment in President Obama’s performance and believe he is headed toward a “mediocre” presidency.
That’s the term liberal historian Howard Zinn of Boston University uses in an article that solicited many viewpoints in the February 1st issue of The Nation magazine. Zinn adds that Obama’s foreign policy is “Hardly any different from a Republican…nationalist, expansionist, imperial and warlike.” And he adds that “mediocre” means “dangerous.”
Conservative Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, writes, “Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan indicates that he will not break with the existing national security consensus. The candidate who promised to ‘change the way Washington works’ has become Washington’s captive.”
Disappointment also characterizes the view of Glenn Loury, professor of the social sciences at Brown University. He says the high point of Obama’s administration was its inauguration “but it has been downhill since.” He complains “Obama has said little of substance about racial inequality” and “what he has said leaves much to be desired.”
On the subject American militarism, Loury says, “His conduct of the ‘war on terror’ and, most distressing, his escalation of our involvement in Afghanistan’s civil war is eerily reminiscent of the approach of his immediate predecessor. This is not change of any kind, let alone of the kind that we can believe in.”
Sociologist Katherine Newman, of Princeton, says, “The symbolic victory of our first African-American presidency gave way to disappointment over his centrism, which comes as no great surprise since Obama never advertised himself as a man of the left. And indeed, he isn’t.”
Marcia Angell, M.D., a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, writes, “count me among those who are disappointed in his (Obama’s) first year.” The reason: “He seems to lack the courage to push for the fundamental reforms necessary to deal with the enormous problems we face, and instead appeases the very forces that have gotten us into this mess.”
On health care, “the reform bill Obama is cobbling together wrongly retains the central role of the private insurance companies and requires millions of people to buy their products at whatever price they charge.”
Angell says her sharpest disappointment is when the administration backed the prohibition against buying lower-priced drugs from Canada and Europe. “During his campaign, Obama promised to end this absurd restriction, but now he’s siding with the pharmaceutical industry.”
In a related article in the magazine’s same issue, historian Eric Foner of Columbia University writes Obama has not learned to question the assurances of the Pentagon, “the lesson (President) Kennedy learned from the Bay of Pigs debacle at the outset of his presidency.”
Foner writes, “it is difficult to view Obama’s initial year without a feeling of deep disappointment.” On the domestic front, for example, Foner says it is “unlikely that an avowedly postracial president will directly address” the plight of blacks, whose economic condition continues to worsen.
Like President Jimmy Carter, “he does not have an industrial policy or a robust jobs-creation program and seems uninterested in addressing the hardships and structural imbalances caused by the decline of manufacturing,” Foner observed.
Adolph Reed, political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that as far back as the summer of 2007 Obama indicated that, if elected, he would “extend the war in Afghanistan into Pakistan.” Concludes Reed: “The only surprise about his presidency is how many ersatz leftists cling to the fiction that he’s anything other than a superficially articulate neoliberal Democrat in the Clinton mold and that his administration would act in any other way.”
How representative the above viewpoints may be of academic thinking generally is anybody’s guess but they fairly ooze disappointment. In sum, they describe Obama as plunging USA deeper into war while neglecting a home front that is falling apart. This week’s upset Republican victory for the late Senator Kennedy’s seat in liberal Massachusetts may be only a foretaste of the political disaster in store for Obama’s party. The biggest losers, of course, will be the people of the Middle East, whose suffering from American invasions and occupations continues without letup.
(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant and columnist. He has reported for the Chicago Daily News and worked as a columnist for wire services. Reach him at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
)
-
2010-01-24 00:50:55 |98.211.150.xxx| Gerrick - Zinn is a hard core Marxist
Howard Zinn flunked me too - for wearing my ROTC Uniform to his class in 1966. My course work was fine, my political oreientation was not, and the administration basically said, "He's the professor, he can do pretty much what he wants."
-
2010-01-24 02:15:30 |75.138.188.xxx| C Ryan - I gave Zinn an honest chance
...My views are diametrically opposed to that of Howard Zinn's but I gave "People's History..." an honest chance. I was absolutely astounded by his lack of basic, historical knowledge in the first chapter alone. He couldn't even get the length of Columbus's ship, the Santa Maria correct! He is a complete failure as a historian. He's nothing but a Marxist ideologue full of himself, and lots of hot air. Oh, and on the wrong side of history too!
-
2010-01-24 02:41:18 |208.127.106.xxx| Ann Onymiss
It was apparent from his pre-presidential record that Obama lacked the work-ethic, competence, diligence, wisdom and integrity to do anything other than fail. The same record predicted that his narcissistic character flaw would blind him to any hope of accepting responsibility and instead blame anyone, everyone around him before recognizing that he was well over his head before he started. It had always worked for him up to now. After all, he made all the way to the highest office in the land with little actual work, or accomplishment. It's a completely different outcome when the whole world can clearly see every incompetent move you make, and every lie you tell. So, now Obama is exposed not just to those that saw it coming, but to anyone with the smallest measure of objectivity. Obama's day of visitation and recompense is just around the corner.
-
2010-01-24 02:50:07 |96.229.29.xxx| Brian - Lousy on the Left
Why do we have to listen to the pronouncements of these lousy, liberal, leftist, losers dressed as professors and pundits? Now they're disappointed that Obama isn't leftist enough for their taste; what a joke. Howard Zinn has singlehandedly ruined the teaching of the discipline of American history in high school and college. The result: absolute illiteracy of all kinds when it comes to basic, useful knowledge of historical facts and issues. Kick these people out of their ivory towers; get some reality check.
-
2010-01-24 09:10:47 |24.170.250.xxx| Brian - Not the President
Please stop referring to Mr Soetoro/Obama as The President. He is not The President. You cannot be born a British Subject and a Natural Born Citizen of the US.
The only reason why he was allowed to continue this farce is because he is half black.
-
2010-01-24 10:23:08 |74.176.112.xxx| Red Leg - One and Done - the legacy of a one term president
We have here the 21st Cent equivalent of Jimmy Carter. An great orator, but an empty suit. How were we fooled by the community organiser? As much as I hate to say it, Gov Palin has much, much more executive level experience.
-
2010-01-24 10:51:32 |75.117.221.xxx| Bobcc - Oh my
It amazes me that so many of these so-called, intelligent people got hoodwinked!
If they had done their homework during the campaign they would have known all about Obama!
Guess they aren't so smart after all!
-
2010-01-24 12:39:18 |71.221.38.xxx| frank
So sad; too bad. The sleeping giant (the "Posterity" to whom this country rightfully belongs) has been outraged and has said: OH NO YOU WON'T! to this Mao worshiping charletan and has rebuked his obsessive treasonous passion to "remake" our Land of the Free and Home of the Brave in the image of Karl Marx. Too many patriotic Americans have died to prevent this from happening.
This country was not founded by, or for, Marxists. It is not their country. They do not belong here. They are not the "Posterity". If the Mao-Tse-Bama has disappointed them, too bad! Try Cuba. There things are done their way.
-
2010-01-24 14:15:08 |97.115.137.xxx| mayeeden - Pointed Eggheads
These egg heads are disappointed for the wrong reasons. They are not dismayed with the unconstitutional grab for power over a free people, but because Obama is not hard core enough to pull off the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic and replace it with a tyrannical government ruled by force. We are not living in a "democracy" as our blinded leaders wrongly refer to our form of government, but we are being ruled by tyrants who ignore the majority and serve their global masters who give them generous rewards for doing so. Keep the pressure on all of these traitors in office and lets throw out all of the incumbents Dem & Rep who have a anti-freedom track record. It is also time to send the Czars packing with tickets to a communist/socialist state where they can set up a new office. They do not belong in America. We need to require hearing tests for all who run for office.
-
2010-01-24 17:02:40 |216.186.131.xxx| gneubeck - Our delusional narcissists' in the White House.
Our delusional narcissists' in the White House.
The greatest impediment to a Democrat Party mid-term course correction to avoid a certain 2010 electoral tidal wave is that their anointed "Standard Bearer" , Barack "ACORN" Obama , is narcissistic to the point of being delusional. An exceedingly dangerous characteristic to have in a President. In Obama's Marxist mindset, it's simply not plausible that his Socialist agenda is anathema to the American public; and, destructive to our economy. Perhaps not surprising when one scrutinizes Obama's past radical associations; and, complete lack of any familiarity with America's private sector. The latter being the reason that he constantly derides the concept of "profit", which of course is the initiator of free-enterprise job-creation. When listening to Obama reading a prepared text from his ubiquitous teleprompters, it's essential to ignore what Obama says, and to give very close scrutiny to what he actually does. Greg Neubeck
-
2010-01-24 17:05:47 |98.248.183.xxx| Robert - Birther
To date, not one single solitary person or agency in the Executive, Legislative, or Judicial branch of government has done anything other than accept Obama's posted Certification of Live Birth as conclusive evidence of his alleged birthplace.
Mr. Obama claims that he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. As his only evidence that he meets the Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that a President be a natural born citizen, he produced a document called a “Certification of Live Birth,” which he posted on his website under the title: “Barack Obama’s Official Birth Certificate.”
At first blush, it is case closed. A closer examination of the facts, however, reveals that Mr. Obama failed to point out on his website that his posted “Official Birth Certificate,” as he called it, is actually a 2007 computer-generated, laser-printed summary document of his 1961 vital record(s) on file with the Hawaii State Department of Health. What we do not know, however, is what 1961 vital record the Certification of Live Birth is summarizing.
In 1961 there were at least six different procedures available to obtain a vital record (birth certificate) that the Certification of Live Birth could be summarizing. Five of the six procedures lacked an adequate indicia of reliability and trustworthiness because they were fraught with the potential for fraud. A "official" state-issued document that summarizes a document that lacks an adequate indicia of reliability and trustworthiness is not worth the paper it is printed on.
Why does all of this matter? This nation can not risk having a President who may harbor divided loyalties because the President of the United States is one of the three branches of government. He is the Executive branch. The nation speaks to all people through one voice, the President’s. The President can make treaties, grant pardons, sign and veto legislation, appoint a Cabinet, as well as Supreme Court Justices. In addition to these duties, the President knows the nation’s most important and secure secrets, and as the Commander in Chief of the military, has the military’s nuclear launch codes at the ready, and who can arguably, either take steps to weaken the nation, or even destroy it. In the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, “The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn’t have to check with anybody. He doesn’t have to call the Congress. He doesn’t have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in.” Copied with permission from http://birther.com (contains actual scans of Hawaii's Revised Laws from 1961).
-
2010-01-24 17:07:19 |98.248.183.xxx| Robert
however, is what 1961 vital record the Certification of Live Birth is summarizing.
In 1961 there were at least six different procedures available to obtain a vital record (birth certificate) that the Certification of Live Birth could be summarizing. Five of the six procedures lacked an adequate indicia of reliability and trustworthiness because they were fraught with the potential for fraud. A "official" state-issued document that summarizes a document that lacks an adequate indicia of reliability and trustworthiness is not worth the paper it is printed on. Copied with permission from http://birther.com (contains actual scans of Hawaii's Revised Laws from 1961).
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
I love it...a whole line up of similarly mediocre, whiny leftist professors lining up to dismiss their Messiah! Makes for great entertainment at least!