<p>So I got a little frustrated yesterday dealing with people complaining about Obama’s first year in office. It is my firm belief that people are being completely irrational with their criticisms of the President. Holding the President accountable and providing constructive criticism is one thing, but what I’m seeing and hearing is more like a bunch of whining and bitching about things people haven’t fully seemed to grasp. I believe it’s a mixture of panic from the status of the economy (which is not his fault), not having a firm grasp of civics and having just completely unreasonable expectations from a President who took over a mess left by arguably the worst President in history. President Obama faces the daunting task of cleaning up several conflicts and crisis with an American public that has ADD and is addicted to a 24 hour news cycle. Think about it for a minute. Before September 11, 2001, do you remember President Bush taking this much shit for things he did/didn’t do during his first year in office? Most people on the left were spending all their time still complaining about Florida’s recount instead of actually looking at what Bush was doing. Fast forward to January/Feburary of 2009 and you had people calling President Obama a failure in his first 100 days in office. No really, I want you to stop and think back to Obama’s first 100 days. Remember all the media (Print, Radio, Cable, Internet, etc.) and the microscope they had President Obama under and how they were rating him on how much progress he gotten in fixing problems there were 8+ years in the making. Joe Scarborough and others would sit there and blame 10.5% unemployment on President Obama…completely ignoring that unemployment is a lagging indicator and that it was generated by a financial collapse that happened in the last months of President Bush’s term. Not only was it irrational but it was also completely unprecedented in that no President in recent history has ever faced THAT much scrutiny over their first 100 days. EVER. Now, after a year in office you have people that will look you in your face and tell you that President Obama hasn’t accomplished ANYTHING in his first year in office. Quite honestly, that pisses me off. Listen, I have my issues with some of the things the President has done (or hasn’t done) over the past year, but to say he hasn’t accomplished anything over the last year makes you at best, misinformed or in denial and at worse dishonest.</p><p>First and foremost, let’s not underestimate the pussification of democrats in Congress. Comparing what a Republican President can get done with a Democratic President is like comparing apples and oranges. Despite their disjointedness, Republicans for the most part stick together. They have no problem sacrificing their principles for political gain. This is evident in the reemergence of “deficit hawks” during the Obama administration who were completely silent while Bush was “making it rain” like Pacman Jones. Democrats on the other hand are a more rag tag group of ‘everyone not a republican’. This means you have to deal with a lot more ideological differences in the same party. It also means you deal with “Conservative Democrats’ who are democrat in name but come from conservative states/districts and therefore have to be more careful with what they support. Take the closing of Gitmo. President Obama signed the order to close it but Congress hasn’t funded it. Sure, the President could spend time and politi
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