Tuesday, 19 Jan 2010 Exactly one year ago today, President Barack Obama swept into the White House on winds of promised change. But a Newsmax look back at his first 365 days in office finds far fewer highlights than lowlights.
On the positive side, Obama no doubt raised the image of America abroad, as demonstrated by his selection as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and he drew praise by going to Dover Air Force Base to witness the return of some American soldiers killed in action.
He signed legislation in February to expand publicly funded insurance for children, reducing the number of uninsured youths by half.
He saw the Senate confirm his choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, as the first Latino justice on the high court.
And he set a new record for getting Congress to vote a president’s way, clinching 96.7 percent of the votes on which he had clearly staked a position — breaking the record set by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, according to Congressional Quarterly.
Some would say that passage of the $787 billion stimulus package also should be viewed as an Obama success in that it may have staved off an even deeper economic meltdown.
But on the negative side, Obama’s first year has been marked by failures, gaffes, broken promises and other missteps, including:
- Within days of taking office, Obama broke his pledge not to raise any taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year by imposing a tax hike of 61 cents on a pack of cigarettes. Measures the president supports would hike taxes by $2.1 trillion over 10 years, according to Americans for Tax Reform.
Just weeks after moving into the White House, Obama signed an executive order to shut down the detainee center at Guantanamo Bay and ordered it closed within a year. Nearly a year after he signed the order, the facility remains open.
The administration decided to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists in a civilian court in New York rather than in a military court, prompting critics to predict a “public show trial.”
- Obama traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, in an effort to convince Olympics officials to stage the 2016 games in Chicago. They chose Rio de Janeiro instead.
Obama also traveled to Copenhagen for the much-ballyhooed climate change conference, but the bid to forge a broad alliance against global warming fell short, and the Obama-favored cap-and-trade legislation appears to be dead in Congress.
The president dithered for months before finally agreeing to send additional troops to Afghanistan, then drew criticism for setting a date for U.S. withdrawal. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that less than half of respondents approve of Obama’s handling of the war overall.
Obama said he would end the war in Iraq. During the year since he took office, 473 more soldiers have died there and elsewhere, and troops remain in Iraq.
Obama’s efforts to seek a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program have produced no results, and the Islamic Republic appears more determined than ever to acquire nuclear weapons.
Diplomacy also has failed to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Despite a campaign pledge to allow C-SPAN to televise congressional meetings, Obama and the Democrats have rebuffed a request from C-SPAN to air healthcare discussions and the final version of the healthcare bill will now be hammered out behind closed doors.
Obama also pledged to usher in a new era of bipartisanship, then went more than six months without meeting with Republican leaders on healthcare.
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