What we get with Barack Obama

There are quite a few websites devoted to trumpeting Barack Obama’s many accomplishments. The one I visited this morning is "Obama’s Achievements Center,” run by a team of around 100 volunteers “dedicated to countering the constant negative drumbeat of our mainstream media.”

I’m not sure the problem is negative media coverage of the president. The media’s determination to maintain a false equivalency between the Democrats and the Republicans is a problem, as I’ve written before – the Democrats are crooked and incompetent but today’s Republicans are evil, unscrupulous and focused like lasers on bringing the president down at all costs – but Obama’s tendency to compromise, capitulate and cater to the interests of conservatives while ignoring the progressives who sent him to Washington in 2008 is the bigger issue. And as different as the two parties are, they’re apparently identical when it comes to advancing the agendas of lobbyists and campaign donors who throw outrageous sums of money at politicians on both sides of the aisle. This, too, is a much bigger problem than “negative media coverage” of the POTUS.

Callista and Newt Gingrich

Having written this, I'll reiterate that Barack Obama strikes me as a lot less evil than any of the GOP’s current presidential contenders. I can’t even believe some of ‘em – I really have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that Newt Gingrich, who’s surely one of the most obnoxious, pompous, insensitive, unlikable, ethically-challenged men ever to lash out condescendingly at reporters, is currently leading the GOP pack. I can’t believe a Robotron like Mitt Romney is still in the mix or that politicians as flawed and deficient as Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are even allowed on a debate stage, let alone cheered and applauded.

Michele Bachmann

The same old, tired, vague slogans come up when I google the Republican candidates: “Join the Fight to Reclaim America” and “Together we can get America working again” and “We need leadership now, real solutions to save America.” (Perhaps appropriately, the catchy slogan that comes up when I google Mitt Romney is “Official campaign site provides his biography, news and information on how to support his candidacy.”) My first thought is always, “Don’t worry; these losers don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming president.” That thought is then shoved aside by the reminder that the Supremes appointed a fake cowboy from Crawford president in 2000 who was re-elected by voters in 2004. Then another reminder forces its way to the fore holding signs that read, ”The Terminator was governor of California” and “Sonny Bono and Gopher from ‘Love Boat’ were Congressmen” and “Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura was governor of Minnesota” and I realize all bets are off.

Anyway, I learned at Obama’s Achievements Center that “he’s done a lot for veterans” and he “cut salaries of senior White House aides” and “established the USA.gov portal connecting people to the services they require.” I had to click on the “reference” at the end of some achievements to find out more, and others had no source or verification link at all. But the list is impressive nonetheless.

Just looking at the number and variety of categories at this one website is overwhelming:

Arts and Culture

Banking and Financial Reform

Civil Rights

Commerce, Trade and Technology

Conservation

Economy

Education

Employment

Energy

Foreign Affairs and International Relations

Government Efficiency

Health and Wellness

Health Care Reform

Housing

Humanitarianism

Immigration

Infrastructure

Labor

Law and Justice

Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security

Military and National Security

Military Veterans and Families

National Disasters and Emergencies

National Service

Scientific and Medical Research

Space Exploration

Taxes

Transparency and Accountability

Recovery, Progress and Change

Miscellaneous

This list made me think about how big a job the occupant of the White House has, how many pressing responsibilities and potential pitfalls and unique needs and competing interests and urgent demands are involved, and how the job is about much more than taxes, abortion and the Pledge of Allegiance. As disappointed as I’ve been in Barack Obama, I sure as hell don’t want Newt and Wife #3 or Mitt and Ann Romney in charge. I hope sanity prevails and Barack and Michelle are given four more years to tackle the list.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Source: Obama’s Achievements Center. Photo of Newt and Callista Gingrich courtesy Spencer Platt/Getty Images.