Not halfway through his term and Joshua Muravchik is ready to declare Obama "history's greatest monster." Muravchik writes:
In contrast, at the time of Obamaâ??s swearing-in, although Americaâ??s popularity ratings were again swooning, almost everything else on the world scene was favorable. America continued to stand as the only superpower. Democracy had spread to nearly two-thirds of the worldâ??s countries (compared to about one-third when Carter came in). In contrast to our spirit-crushing defeat in Vietnam, the â??surgeâ? apparently snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Iraq. Seven years after 9/11, terrorists had not been able to pull off another attack on US soil. True, the Iranian nuclear program posed a gathering menace, Afghanistan was deteriorating, and Pakistan was shaky, but compared to what Carter faced, the world Obama inherited was a bed of roses.Thanks to Obamaâ??s foolhardy approach to the world, this is unlikely to be true for his successor.
It's generally acknowledged by most people minimally conversant with the news that President Obama did not take office at a particularly auspicious time in American history - with two ongoing counter-insurgencies and the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression headlining the list of challenges he faced. Be that as it may, let's grant that things weren't as bad as when Jimmy Carter took office. So is Obama making things worse?
On the economic front, that will be easy enough to judge. Either key economic indicators will have improved or deteriorated since 2009. There's not a lot of room to hide when it comes to numbers. On the foreign policy front, however, the judgment will largely be an ideological one. For instance, some people would lump starting a war with Iran under the "making things worse" category while Muravchik would, I suspect, consider that an improvement.
