Think before you criticize

In typical form, we are finding so many faults with Barack Obama.  He hasn't doesn't it well enough, should have had more control over the economic stimulus bill.  We are also saying that Michelle Obama doesn't have enough fashion taste (she looks ok to me, but then I'm not a fashion designer).  Please!  Why is it so important to look at what we think are the defects?

Is it part of the old "we hate the boss" syndrome?  Obama is not perfect, but my goodness, what a difference from his predecessor.  We should be thankful that W's reign of terror is over.

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Rupert Cornwell: Don't believe the critics – Obama is off to a good start

For once a US politician is treating his electorate as grown-ups
London Independent
Friday, 13 February 2009


He hasn't waved a magic wand and solved the economic crisis. Since his inauguration barely three weeks ago – an interval that already feels in some ways like three years – Wall Street has tumbled further. The right accuses him of being a socialist, the left complains he's too centrist. Elements of both say he's ill-prepared and naïve. "Amateur Hour", blared a headline in The Washington Post, summing up a widespread first impression of the 44th president at work.

The truth is rather different. Mercifully, the giddy euphoria of victory is no more. Inevitably, in febrile hyperventilating Washington, DC, the pendulum has now swung towards disappointment. In truth however Barack Obama has got off to a good start. Events may yet derail him, but the promise of his presidency is no less now than it was on that 4 November night in Chicago's Grant Park, when all things seemed possible.

Inside his first fortnight, he signed two important pieces of legislation, one establishing equality of pay for men and women, the other expanding health care to 4 million uninsured children. And now the amateur president has secured Congressional approval for an $800bn economic stimulus bill, the largest such measure in American history.

The process wasn't pretty. But such things rarely are – least of all when the Republican opposition is out to test him. But Obama got more or less what he wanted, as even the most diehard Republicans realised that the party could only ignore 4 November's message at its peril.

Thus far, Obama in government has almost exactly resembled the Obama on display during the general election campaign. His decisions have been those of a pragmatist who rejects the extremes, convinced of the power of reason and common sense to prevail. Thus, to the anger of the left, he has rejected any witchhunt into the transgressions of the Bush administration, believing it is more important to confront the future than to rake over the past...more