I grade Obama's first 100 days

Before we undertake this analysis of President Obama's performance over his first 100 days in office, I just want to remind everyone of the difficult circumstances facing the president: A global economic crisis the likes of which this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression, massive deficits handed off to him by his predecessor, wars on two fronts ...

(Sounds of glass breaking, furniture being thrown, and people being hit with a marching band baton)

Sorry, folks. A band of national pundits led by Tavis Smiley had temporarily taken over my computer. But there is no need to panic; order has been restored.

As I said in the previous post, President Obama has done a decent job in his first 100 days in the White House.

On the positive side:

One of the first things the president did was to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act. If you've followed my writings here and in the Opelika-Auburn News over the past several months, you know I am a big fan of this bill. Companies are wrong to discriminate between men and women who do equal work; thanks to this bill and the determination of one Alabama woman to turn the injustice she faced into justice for others, companies who now perpetrate this discrimination will pay -- as they should -- in court.

President Obama's handling of the H1N1 flu crisis gets a thumbs-up from me so far. He has presented a calm but steady approach to the problem and had his administration taking visible roles in calming fears across the country. He's taken full advantage of the improved government infrastructure that is allowing for the strong response, and he's given credit where credit is due for that improved infrastructure. He's taking lumps for not closing the border with Mexico, but doctors believe there's no real benefit to doing that; doing it without the advice of the disease specialists would likely add to the public's panic and make things much worse. Just keep Joe Biden away from the mikes.

(I would, however, like to know if the president got a shot of Tamiflu when he got back from Mexico a couple of weeks ago.)

On the Big Three, Obama has maintained his course as it relates to the long-term survival of the American auto manufacturing industry. He's sticking by Chrysler, even in bankruptcy, as he should. Chapter 7 liquidation would result in a lot more unemployment and misery for families; as long as there is a viable alternative -- and with Fiat, there is -- it should be vigorously pursued. He needs to continue to emphasize, as he did last night, that he has no intention of the federal government staying in the auto business for a moment longer than is necessary to stabilize it; he needs to take every opportunity to endorse capitalism -- for the sake of our entrepreneurs as well as his detractors.

On the banks, Obama remains engaged with a plan to help financial institutions right themselves. Again, he's taking lumps here because credit hasn't loosened up as quickly as it needs to, but as Lars Larsen pointed out on Larry King's show last night, the government gave them a big, nasty lecture on irresponsible lending. That lecture was well deserved, because it was those irresponsible decisions -- widespread approvals of no-money-down mortgages for people without jobs among them -- that got us into this mess in the first place. So to expect the banks to turn around and begin lending to everyone again is not only unreasonable, it's counterproductive to recovery. This is going to be a slow process; as solid investors gain confidence and get back in the game, banks' cash flow will increase, and that will, in turn, provide the oil for the gears to get the lending process moving again. Here again, the president needs to emphasis his interest in better oversight and common-sense regulation to ensure that banks can't play bait-and-switch with their balance sheets anymore and his determination to get Uncle Sam out of the bank ownership business as fast as reasonably possible.

On the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: I applaud the president for deferring to the judgment and advice of his military commanders on the ground in these places for the best plans going forward. Obama has never served in the military, so he will do well to give his military commanders the benefit of the doubt. Predictably, those on the left were furiout that he tweaked his commitment on a timeline for getting the troops out of Iraq, but when it became apparent to Obama that that timeline was neither good for the troops nor the Iraqis, he was man enough to admit it and adjust. At the same time, he was mulling an increase in the troop deployment in Afghanistan, which he ended up approving -- again, on the advice of the military. As the Taliban closes in on Islamabad, this may end up being an even smarter decision than it was to begin with. Good for Obama, and good for us, that we have a commander-in-chief willing to listen to the men and women in uniform.

On transparency, Obama has done well. His commitment to this issue will be tested in coming months and years as his administration builds up documents and, inevitably, makes mistakes (as all administrations do). But for the short term, at least, he gets a thumbs up from he on this.

On the negative side:

I have to give him a below-average grade on his Cabinet selection process. Seriously, did they really not know that at least six nominees had problems or connections to problems with taxes? Or did they just not think anyone else would care? After all that attention the presidential appointment application received (and the fact that Rahm Emanuel was running the process), only a fool would believe that any surprises existed by the time Obama made his picks.

I'm not thrilled with some of Obama's tactics when it comes to supporting the Big Three. In particular, I didn't appreciate his remark this morning about hoping that the next car you buy will be an American car. It's clear that he was swiping at foreign-owned car companies -- never mind that they employ thousands of Americans in American plants that are supplied by American companies with American workers. One of the things I hated the most about the Big Three bailout was this geographic sense of superiority -- that Detroit wouldn't need help if it wasn't for those pesky automakers who had infiltrated the South. Hey guys, guess what? That's called competition; it's a big part of capitalism, which you may have forgotten something about. Another example of this geographic disconnect was the dust-up with the Air Force's new tanker contract. Obama got behind Boeing, even though a foreign company that planned something like 2,000 jobs in Mobile won the contract. What do these things have in common? U-N-I-O-N-S, that's what. The president is developing a nasty habit of favoring unions in particular over American workers as a whole, and that's dangerous for more than economic reasons; he's contributing to a culture divide, and we have enough division in this country as it is.

Obama talks a good game about bipartisanship, but when it comes down to appointments in positions where he could really make a difference, he has consistently gone for the partisan and philosophical over the moderate and pragmatic. One example of this is Kathleen Sebelius. Obama would have been hard-pressed to find a nominee more controversial among Republicans (unless it was Howard Dean). But his choice of her, combined with the fact that Tom Daschle was his first choice (see above), put this country in the position of facing the H1N1 outbreak without an HHS secretary. Another example is Hilda Solis, the labor secretary. While Big Labor loved that pick, she has no credibility at all with the business community -- and businesses are kind of important when it comes to the Labor Department.

Obama's decision to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay gets a thumbs-down from me, not necessarily for the philosophy behind it (see below), but because he made the announcement without having any idea what he was going to do with the detainees being housed there. Obama allowed himself to be boxed in by liberals who demanded that announcement as one of the first things he did as president. As a result, we are still trying to figure out what to do with those detainees -- and we're finding that our European allies, while they don't like Gitmo, aren't so keen on taking them off our hands. The far left won this one; let's hope it's not at the expense of national security.

And then there are actions which only history can judge. Chief among these are his early decisions to close Gitmo and ban those infamous "enhanced interrogation techniques." Regardless of your personal opinion on these topics, it takes a lot of guts to make tough decisions like these, when your choices could have very real -- and irreversible -- consequences for Americans all over the world. I don't know if these calls are the right ones; I hope we're never in a position of having to choose between torturing a terrorist or two and getting information that could save hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent lives. But that's a Pollyanna way of looking at the world. I just hope that Obama's decisions turn out to be the right ones.

Another big question mark in Obama's legacy will be this philosophy of intervening in the markets to stabilize the economy. Conservatives howled when the feds forked over billions to Wall Street banks and the Big Three. I was among those asking whether the government was calling the code on capitalism. History will decide whether the bailout and the deficit-fueled stimulus packages were worth the risk. My advice to Obama on how he can increase his chances of a favorable final analysis: Get Uncle Sam off the court and back in the umpire's chair as soon as possible.

Finally, Obama has some opportunities coming up in which he can make some progress on his campaign promise to be the president of all Americans. Foremost among these: His first Supreme Court nomination this summer. It was learned tonight that Justice David Souter will retire after the Court's current term. Will the president choose an interpreter or an activist? Or, will he do the smart thing and choose someone in between -- a believable moderate with no political axe to grind? Given the Court's current ideological makeup and Souter's position as one of its liberal members, the temptation to replace him ideologically may be too much for the president to bear. But there are other opportunities: He's lifted the ban on federal stem-cell research; he can extend an olive branch to those who value the sanctity of human life by leaving the conscience clause in place. We've heard talk that he was preparing for "reconciliation," the so-called nuclear option, to move his coming health-care plan through Congress; now that he has all but sewn up a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, he can walk the bipartisan walk by encouraging the Senate to consider his plan, and all his other legislative initiatives, along regular lines of deliberation.

All in all, I give the president a solid B-minus for his first 100 days. He has produced an above-average performance; he gets props from me for his ambitious agenda and quick start, but he loses points because his missteps were easily avoidable.

The president is well on his way. We now return you to our regularly scheduled blogging ... and the next 100 days.