99th day view

With the first 100 days in office being the most celebrated event nowadays (although I’m not quite sure why), I just wanted to throw my opinion of the president out there.

First of all, I do not hate Obama. I don’t foam at the mouth at the mere mention of his name, nor do I hope that he fails. I do, however, disagree some of his actions and I definitely disagree with a lot of people’s opinion of his leadership so far.

I disagree with him on his partisanship. I think he’s continuing the patter of George W. Bush by locking himself in as a party president rather than the nation’s president. Whether Obama likes the opinions of the GOP congressmen or not, it should be his duty to sit down and work the issues out with them. Those congressmen serve as representatives of their respective states and GOP still represents about 40-45% of this nations population (rough guesstimate). By discarding them completely, all we see is a president who’s in office to push his party’s platform through. Just like his predecessor, Obama so far does not make decisions for the country. He makes the decisions for his party.

With that said, I do enjoy his approach to international politics. I think he has been great so far at taking first steps towards repairing our strained relationship with European and Asian nations. I think it’s great that Obama sees the U.S. as a member of the world community rather than a dictator who can force others into submission every time.

Overall though, international politics alone don’t make a great president. He needs to succeed domestically to put him in the elite. To become great, he’ll actually have to get both parties to work together, otherwise he’ll eventually end up as another failure, or mediocre at best.